Healing Through Absurdity

A dominatrix, a lesbian, and myself go to a funeral.

There's no punchline here, this just happened the other week.

The funeral was for a close friend of ours, a father figure of sorts to the restless youth of Columbus. He gave us advice and drinks and the often-needed verbal evisceration, angry-but-compassionate speeches composed of a unique juxtaposition of swear words and wisdom from experience.

He grew dark hair and mixed clear drinks.

He discovered the secret to trusting people while being acutely aware of exactly how they behave in the dark. He was teaching me the same, but I'm a slow learner.

He was entering his fifties, but all of us, including him, were too young to be prepared for his departure.

He did it to himself, clogging his lungs with tar and nicotine since his adolescence. His expiration date was in June, but he held out until August to make it as inconvenient as possible for all of us. In June we had clear schedules, we had prepared ourselves for the inevitable emptiness. By August we were exhausted, busy with relocating and work and other responsibilities, wondering why he found it necessary to drag it out. During our visits we'd tell him to "just die already," attempting to make a joke out of what we honestly wanted and needed.

Making us wait is something he's always done. He'd show up to the bar late, prepare dinner late, watch and wait for us to fuck up before explaining what we were doing wrong. It was his way of garnering our attention.

Even in death, he's still an inconsiderate ass.

He's lucky his husband didn't put R.I.P. ASS on the tombstone.

Actually there wasn't a tombstone, because as a couple they didn't believe in partitioning that much public space for a memorial when it could be put to better use and something about the thought of their bodies getting all gross in a box being too much to handle.

So we wrote R.I.P. ASS in every bar bathroom we could find. We dug into the walls of stalls with keys and wrote across tile with markers, leaving scars and tattoos on every clean space we could find. We vandalized the city in his memory.

But the vomiting? The vomiting was all for Amy.

Blackout Faith

I woke up in a jacuzzi at the Hyatt.

I didn't know it was the Hyatt, at the time I assumed it was an apartment. The tub had been drained. I was slightly damp and comfortably wrapped in a towel.

It smelled like my grandma's house, Skinner's Salve, her miracle cure for every ailment that comes with age.

A few weeks ago I went to Denver for a cousin's wedding. Being a gentleman and a grandson, I asked my grandmother to dance.

She quickly seized the opportunity to corner me, preaching to me about not attending church on Easter.

Which is funny, because she's the reason I've been agnostic since third grade. Yes, I know agnostic is just a coward's atheist, but for now that's what I am.

Let's get back to the part where I woke up in a jacuzzi at the Hyatt wearing a bathing suit that wasn't mine.

I found my clothes on the bathroom counter. After putting myself in the comfort of my own clothes, I did the pat down, the one where I make sure I have the essentials: wallet, keys, phone. Check, check, check.

I wandered out of the bathroom into a bedroom, framed pictures on the nightstand. In the pictures were a woman with strawberry-banana hair. Her face was vaguely familiar, and the synapses in my brain lazily sputtered back and forth in an attempt to retrieve our meeting the night before. If I had to guess, I'd assume she was thirty-eight years old. It's a low guess, but I'm always a gentleman when it comes to a woman's age.

Some memories spark: my tongue twisting around the mouth of a stranger, a girl, someone I'd met at a bar and left at a bar, somebody that I made out with mostly to prove I could and a little bit to stir up one of my friends. Blurred images crept behind my eyes: hugging my friend, leaving the bar alone, attempting to find a cab, discussing my inability to find a cab with a woman with strawberry-banana hair...

I looked at the three framed pictures on the nightstand, each one of her with a different person of interest.

George Carlin. Bryant Gumbel. Ricki Lake.

Finding the bedroom empty, I walked through the doors into a small but swanky living area. Sharing the stand with a flat-screen television were two more photographs of the strawberry-banana haired woman with the rich and (sort of) famous. I made a mental note to Google "the older girl from Just Shoot Me" and "lead singer of Staind."

The woman with strawberry-banana hair was sitting on the couch and sipping a coffee, the steam surrounding a gracefully aging face, each wrinkle working as a compliment, a signature marking an experience. I can't exactly describe what she was wearing, because I don't know the word, but it was purple and draped and sort of a shirt but kind of a dress. She made it work even though it was a bit disorienting, but anything can be disorienting after... how many shots did my former coworker and his girlfriend buy me last night? When did I leave them to go see other friends?

"Nice apartment," I said.

"Sweetheart, you're at the Hyatt."

The same Hyatt where my ex-boyfriend bartends, the same Hyatt where I went to see my friend model in a hair show.

I suspiciously eyed the framed pictures by the television.

"My definition of home is different than most people," she said, using a tone that implied there was an inside joke between us.

"I was just talking about that with my friend last night."

"I know," she said, "You told me last night."

She explained that we had met on High Street and decided to share a cab but were enjoying the conversation so much we ended up drinking all night. Memories stirred between my eyes. She said that she had been attracted to my aura.

"But this isn't the first time you've been complimented on your aura, is it?" she added, narrowing her eyes at me.

I've always tried to avoid believing in ghosts and auras and fate, because those beliefs would mean some of my experiences are real and that would be a totally fucked-up world to live in.

But you can only be complimented on your aura so many times before you start to have faith in... something?

We went to get breakfast together, where she walked the line between honesty and deception, revealing the darkest corners of her being but refusing to discuss the job that keeps her traveling.

I did the opposite, telling her about my previous jobs and what I'm considering doing with my future.

My lease expires on August 25th, my campus job a day later. I see the strings in front of me but I'm unsure of which ones to climb. Some lead to Columbus, others to different cities, and quite a few to places I never would have imagined.

So I'm going to take the woman's advice, and follow my aura. I'll have faith in the dizzying powers of chaos and ride the waves of coincidence until it leads me to somewhere I can call home.

It led me to a jacuzzi at the Hyatt, so it must have pretty good judgment.

To Hurt and to Hold

"Bobby, your boner is poking me," he mumbles. He says it in a way that implies the appendage is no more offensive than a leg or an arm. He came from a part of my life when people called me Bobby.

"Sorry," I say, shifting my body away from him.

He's a nurse from an old group of friends, a group that used touch as a form of communication. Boys and girls, resting our heads on each others' laps and casually draping our legs over shoulders. We could fit seven of us on a couch and still be comfortable. We embraced the warmth and care of each other without the pheromones and motivations that came with sexual exploits.

I guess that's what he and I are doing, considering we've been sleeping with each other for months but haven't so much as exchanged a kiss. When we sleep together we abide by the definition of the word, keeping our genitals and body fluids to ourselves but reveling in the connection of entering the twisted reality of dream with another person.

Besides, he smokes and I don't appreciate the taste of ash the way I used to.

I run my hand through his hair. His Chinese ancestry gifted him with sleek, wispy hair and high cheekbones, a strong but balanced brow and a wide jawline that seems to have a Western influence

A few minutes later he rises from bed, the bruise I planted on him last night blossoming on his side. The muscles of his stomach are always more defined in the morning, dehydrated and craving nourishment. His shoulders are wide from the push ups he frequently partakes in, like the ones he's currently doing on his bedroom floor.

He's been teaching me to spar in his living room, sometimes the back patio if the weather is comfortable. We exchange fists and feet in a flurry of violence then collapse into a heap of tangled limbs and affection on the couch, sometimes discussing our new love interests and other times soaking in the silence of our souls. I used to attempt to avoid that silence, fill it with music and books and movies, conversations with strangers and bottles of beer, but I've become more comfortable with it over time.

Usually we'll only spar for an hour or two a night, but sometimes when we're feeling frisky we'll go for hours, sweat spraying into each others eyes and knuckles sliding across shoulders. But we always remain to nurse bruised bones and bleeding elbows.

Someone to hold, someone to hurt, isn't that what everybody really wants?

We sneak in and out of each others' apartments, discover new ways to cover cuts and bruises, avoid intertwining our fingers around friends. The parallels to an abusive relationship aren't lost on us.

Eventually we mentioned our situation to friends. Some were hostile, others curious and full of questions we weren't quite sure we knew the answers to. We were met with some rolling eyes and we answered with shrugged shoulders, often responding with "I don't know." Some don't believe us and others ask "what's the point?"

Our friendship is defined in a way that crosses the boundaries of traditional camaraderie but doesn't quite roam into the realm of romance. We walk the borders in between, nomads declaring ourselves citizens of neither and left to fend for ourselves between the opposing sides.

It's about finding what's comfortable.

And sometimes running your fingers through the hair of a close friend while he rests his head on your lap, splitting a six-pack of Shiner Bock, and watching an episode of Misfits together is what's comfortable.

Put Your Hands Up for Detroit.

Wait... I meant Denver. Don't put your hands up for Detroit. I mean, have any of you guys been there lately? That place is tragic.

I went to Denver for a cousin's wedding last week, traveling across the country by van with some family members. We set up residence in a swanky hotel, my room on the second floor while my parents stayed on the fourth.

I woke up Friday morning and decided to head upstairs to see if my parents wanted to get some breakfast. As I walked down the scarlet-carpeted hallways I noticed remnants from the night before left outside each room. Some rooms had two wine glasses on the floor and others just one, indicating a night of romance or a quiet evening alone. Others had a single plate covered by a napkin, revealing that the room's resident had indulged in an exquisite meal.

My parents' room was at the end of the hallway, and after a long trek, I arrived at their door.

Where I found this:

More like Queer's Light, am I right?

I guess my older brother was lying when he claimed I was adopted.

Alkaline

It started with a pharmacy book.

It was January of this year and I was working as a library assistant. When he arrived at the front desk we made eye contact and there was a pause in the way he looked at me.

It was a look of curiosity, mixed with fear and relief and topped off with recognition. He didn't recognize my face, but recognized something in me that was similar to him.

I was instantly smitten. More handsome and charismatic men pass through the library every day, but I could feel the same recognition that the man across the desk was experiencing, and that was more desirable than the never-ending line of chiseled jaws and smart mouths that passed.

Was it because he was a pharmacy graduate student? Maybe I was attracted to his knowledge of pharmaceuticals, the way he was already familiar with my past romances, pills with odd behavior and exotic names. Names like Darvocet and Ritalin and Xanax, they were the kind of names that brought a sharp zest to the tongue when spoken, names like the people I've dated in the past. With the likes of Klonopin and Strattera and Vicodin already filed away in his mind, I wouldn't have to explain how they took me in and the way we mistreated each other. He would already understand.

He had one of those names. I would later learn he grew up in a faraway place where the weather is warm and the people are dark.

When discussing him with friends I began referring to him as my Pharmacy Student Crush, a way to make a joke out of it, an attempt at sucking the tension from the air.

One Sunday morning in spring I found him in the lobby as I waited for my supervisor to unlock the doors to the rest of the library. He struggled with the Coke machine, feebly attempting to get it to accept his tribute. But like the printers and computers and other mechanisms of the library, the machine was temperamental and unwilling to sell. After he gave up, I slid a crisp dollar and fresh quarter into the machine, change from the bars the night before, purchased a Cherry Coke, and handed it to him. He gave me that same look as always, brown eyes filled with recognition and confusion.

"It's what you wanted, right?" I asked. I couldn't recall how I knew Cherry Coke was his preferred method of contracting diabetes, it was one of those notes about him I just knew without memory as to how.

He stammered, "Uh yeah. Thanks, I owe you one."

Weeks later I would accidentally spill an entire cart of books in front of him, a clumsy spectacle that embarrassed me to the core in a way that is rarely experienced past childhood. The various motherly figures I've accumulated on Facebook were quick to console me. They have a way of taking the silly and trivial and transforming it into something beautiful:

"The spectacle could only make him fall harder and faster, sweetheart. It's form before function for most of us science geeks..."

"Smooth never, ever leads to sublime, it is in the borderline tragic from which true joy springs."

Months passed and soon it was summer. I was working at the library full-time while looking for work after my recent graduation. My job with a before-and-after school program ended with spring, as well as the writing internship I was participating in. I was at a point where my job search, after several incredibly promising, potentially life-changing leads and interviews, had flatlined.

I was in a morose mood. I shuffled about the stacks on the fourth floor of the library, a pair of the library's giant, seemingly ancient headphones covering my ears and blasting them with modern bass. I was unshaven, trying to recall if I'd showered that morning and came to the conclusion that I hadn't. Had I even bothered to brush my teeth? I shelved book after book, a repetitive task that couldn't keep me from thinking about my impending doom when my college job and lease expired in September.

After I finished putting the books in their proper place, I began my descent down a stairway left dark and dingy by recent construction in the building.

I heard his footsteps coming up as I made my way to the landing of the second floor.

We passed on the second floor. He was there with his dark hair, his olive-brown skin, his plain but functional clothes and his triangular nose.

In a split moment my brain declared war on itself.

The right side, controlled by my mother and fueled by creativity and impulse, whispered "Fuck it. Why not?"

The left side, reigned over by my father and functioning with rationale and logic, screamed "WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU CAN'T JUST MAKE OUT WITH PEOPLE IN STAIRWELLS THIS IS HOW PEOPLE LOSE THEIR JOBS."

The two sides are usually able to come to a compromise, but in that instant the right side won.

Without provocation, wordless, I took his chin in my hand and kissed him.

There was a slight recoil, the bite one feels when licking a battery, the bitter taste of alkaline. As time passed the initial jolt remained but relaxed itself, like the electric beat pulsing through my ears. My right hand held his chin and my left hand brushed along the hair near his ears.

When it was over he looked at me, that same look of curiosity and recognition, but this time with a wider smile, the kind that releases noise, almost a laugh. I took my headphones off and left them on my neck as they cried for attention.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"Uh..." I hummed, rubbing my neck, "I'm not sure I did."

He gave me his number and told me to text him sometime, but warned me that "this stuff" was a secret for him.

I gave him my number and told him to call me in a few years when he was more comfortable with himself.

It's been a few days.

He still hasn't called.