Commitment Issues (13 page)

There simply wasn't anybody around that I wanted to fuck (or have fuck me would be more accurate). There wasn't anybody around that I wanted to get to know. I didn't want to cook for myself, and I wasn't in the mood to go out.

Okay, I don't usually like to complain, but I was in a really bad place. The only things I wanted to do were cut off from me. I wanted the world to get off my back.

Wyatt had moved on with his year of sobriety. Goody for him (and I meant that). He had crossed over that magical boundary now. Wyatt was no longer a newcomer in my eyes, so all the rules were off. If he wanted to make love to me, that would be awesome. If he wanted us to be a couple, I'd jump all over the chance. The trouble was that he no longer wanted that, and it made me sick.

Hi, I'm Sean, and I'm a Wyatt-holic.

Rafa
, I said under my breath.
Help me, Rafa.

I'm addicted to Wyatt, Rafa. I want to be with him. I need to be with him, and I'm not. He doesn't want anything to do with me. He rejects me because I didn't want a relationship with him when he first came to AA. I did it to protect him, Rafa. If I had jumped into a relationship with Wyatt, it couldn't have been good. Didn't I do the right thing, Rafa? If it was the right thing to do, why do I feel so bad about it now? If I had touched him, it would have been wrong. So I didn't touch him, and that was wrong too. Damned if I know a way out of this. Wyatt is all I can think about, and it isn't just that I want sex with him. He's gorgeous, but he's barely my type. He's so nelly, Rafa. I'm sure guys pick on him, and I never had to worry about that. He's the sweetest guy I ever met, and now he rips my heart out of my ribcage every day. I think about him when I get up, and I cry about him at night. What am I supposed to do, Rafa? You told me to call you if I needed anything. You told me that I had your number. What the fuck am I supposed to do here?

If I ever needed the work of an angel, it was now. I hadn't seen my angel for a long time, not since that night when I found him on top of my apartment fence. Maybe my life was so far gone that not even my angel could fix it. If anybody would know what to do, it was Rafa.

My angel had told me to call him. He said that I knew his number. Yeah, right.

Rafa wasn't with me. No angel, no boyfriend. No nothing.

I disappointed myself. I resented all of Wyatt's new friends. I was lonely and sad, and nothing was working.

"What the fuck are you gonna do about this?” Janie said one afternoon after work the following week. We were standing in the parking lot of the radio station. It wasn't my favorite place for a confrontation with the only person who was still speaking to me on a friendly basis.

"Me? I'm the victim here."

"Huh?” she said. “What the fuck are you planning to do? You gotta fix this thing."

"Put rocks in my pockets and jump off a cliff? Eat some thumbtacks? Enlist in the French Foreign Legion?” I said. “I don't know."

"No lo sabes?"

"Yeah, I don't know."

"No me chingas, Joto,” she said. “No se? What do you mean, you don't know?"

"That's Senor Joto to you, puta,” I said.

"Besame el culo!” she said like she was ready to punch me in the stomach. I agreed to go to a coffee shop with her. She said it was important. She drove, and I just sat in the passenger seat. It was only a couple of blocks from the radio station. I could have walked.

"Cafe solo,” she told the waitress.

"Lo mismo, pero con hielo,” I said.

"Frio?” the waitress said.

"Si, por favor,” I said. I don't know much Spanish, but you pick up a little here and there when you spend any time around Janie Marroquin. It isn't always the most polite form of the language, but you always know a way to get your idea across. And when you don't know a word, you can just say it in English. There are lots of words that I don't know, so listening to Janie and me talk will give you whiplash.

"Mira, gatito,” she said, holding out a mirror from her oversized purse. I think she keeps a whole zip code in that purse. Need an instruction manual for canning Swedish lingon berries? Ask Janie Marroquin, because she probably has one with her. Everything but money. We never seem to have money.

I took the mirror, and I saw lines where there used to be smooth skin. I was twenty-five years old but going on eighty.

"Okay,” I said, “yo veo."

"No, you don't see nothin', cabron,” she said. Whenever she gets pissed or excited, Janie forgets everything about English grammar.

"I'm telling you that this thing is killing you,” she continued. “You're distracted when you're at work. Listen to me, if you don't do good on the air, you're endangering my life. Go fuck with yourself if you want, but I got kids. I need this job, so don't go fuck it up. If you get fired, we all get fired. My kids need to eat. Don't fuck with my kids, man. Ronny has a girl in parochial school. Parochial school this year. College next year. He needs that job. He's a fucking good engineer, and he always makes you sound better than you should."

"Yeah."

"Yeah? All you can say is ‘yeah'? I'm serious, salame. You got no clue, and you don't even see what it's doing to Wyatt."

"Huh? He's doing fine. I've seen him out with a whole new group of friends."

"Friends? Bullshit. I saw him here in the coffee shop a couple of days ago, and he had lots of people around him. They weren't friends. They were leeches. Wyatt is the prettiest man I ever saw. Just sitting next to him makes you look better. I wish he could bottle whatever shit he got from his parents, ‘cause we could make a fortune. Damn, he's pretty, and you act like you don't even notice. Oh, and he does tattoos for a living, which makes some guys think he's a little bit dangerous. He got bags under his eyes now, you big dope. You don't get bags under your eyes when you're in your twenties, and they didn't come from doing tattoos."

"So what should...?"

"Pull your fucking head out of your fucking ass, maricon. There's a lot of us who wish we had what you just thrown away. You're busy throwing away the best man you're ever gonna see in this life or the next. Wake up, dude. And Wyatt ain't just pretty, he's sweet. And he isn't just sweet, he is out of his fucking head in love with you. Don't be a pendejo, man. God don't give you many guys like Wyatt, so don't throw it away."

"So now what?” I asked. “He rejected me. I didn't throw him away."

"Go to him, Sean."

"I don't—"

"I'm scared, Sean. You're scaring the crap out of me. I can't lose this job. You need to fix this thing in your life, because what you do affects me. If you don't give a flyin’ fart what happens to you, then you gotta fix this for Ronny's kids and mine."

We sat without saying anything. I hadn't thought about my pity-pot causing trouble for anybody but me. I saw it was tearing me up, and I had no idea what to do about it.

"I'm sorry, Janie,” I said as I got out of the booth. I threw a five-dollar bill on the table and walked out of the coffee shop. It was just a couple of blocks back to the station, and I wanted to walk. If Janie drove down the street, I didn't see her. Back at the station, I just leaned against my bike for several minutes.

Just like the old days. I could fuck up a wet dream, given half a chance. Beats me what I did that was so wrong.

I got on my motorcycle but just sat there for about twenty minutes. I tried to think of a way to approach Wyatt. When I tried, he pushed me away. He didn't even want to be in the same AA meeting as me. Should I just ignore that?

If Janie Marroquin is right, he isn't so happy with his new circle of friends. Maybe if I could just talk to him. Start slow, but I'm so scared of him

I love Wyatt.

There, I said it. I said it aloud: I love Wyatt. I've loved him since the first time I saw him, and I've been running away from that all this time. I love Wyatt, and I would do anything for him. I'd let him do anything to me. I know he's effeminate, but he's also a top. We're compatible in bed. All that time I thought we wouldn't have anything in common in bed, but I was so wrong. I thought we'd make good friends but lousy lovers. I fucked that up. We were awful friends, but we could be great lovers.

I love Wyatt. I love this man. I love every inch of him. He's so soft and wonderful. He's one of the funniest guys that I ever met, and his mind works so fast.

I love Wyatt, and I completely fucked things up between us.
I didn't mean to make a mess, but it was clear that I had a royal piece of crap on my hands.

Maybe Wyatt and I could go out for coffee if I could find him at a meeting. I could take off a day, maybe pre-record the noon slot. I was sure Janie would help me do that if she was trying to get us back together. Yeah, that might actually work.

Okay, I had a plan. It was something that I could try. It was something that I needed to try. Start slow.

I was going to find Wyatt and crawl back to him. Maybe he wouldn't just run the other direction, and that would be a good enough start. I'd take whatever he offered: probation, anything. Walk on glass, anything.

I had a plan, and it was enough for me to start the Harley and ride back to my apartment.

Back at the apartment, I picked up the Big Book. This fuck-up that I called my life was now requiring me to read that stupid book.
We seldom had friends at our homes...

"Why?” I screamed at nothing. “Why, Rafa?"

Chink
came a sound from the bedroom. A window breaking? I couldn't imagine what it might be, so I got up to go see.

Smoke. There was smoke in my bedroom.

Smoke? Holy shit!

I jumped back into the living room just as everything stopped. It was all black and quiet.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Chink
and smoke and then nothing. Everything was dark and empty. No sounds. No movement.

When I came to, there was something in my mouth. Tubes. I had tubes going down into my throat.
Can't swallow.
My arms were tied down. I saw what looked like a police uniform, so maybe I was under arrest for something. My head was foggy. So foggy that....

It was all I saw. I got little blips and chunks of time. There was no sequence to anything, and nothing made sense. I barely had any words that popped up. Everything was a blur.

"We don't know if he's going to make it. I'm sorry,” and then nothing. Who wasn't going to make it? Me? Was I about to die with tubes in my mouth? Was that uniform about to take me somewhere for execution for some crime?
Green pill. Mushrooms. Blue caterpillar.

"Sean?” Mother? Could that be my mother? I hadn't seen her in a few years. Was somebody saying I wasn't going to make it? I was dying? My arms couldn't move. Nothing could move. So tired.

Hand. Soft hand. Felt good. No, it felt nothing. Hand was smooth but couldn't... move....

I remembered Janie. What was Janie's last name? Janie had a last name. I was supposed to know her last name. I thought I remembered Wyatt. Wyatt? Yeah, maybe he was there for a while. My AA sponsor, Sharon. Yeah, she was there. She was almost drooling at the morphine dispenser. Was it morphine, or was it the state prison, and they were about to execute me for some awful crime with an injection of deadly chemicals? No, morphine. Hey, I knew the feeling of... okay, so I was in a hospital. Sharon was coveting my morphine dispenser. I remember trying to laugh at how attentive Sharon was to my dispenser, and she was the one talking me out of drinking a beer.
Once an addict, always an addict. It's all mine, bitch. Go get your own fucking morph... can't fucking move....

I got a hundred of these little snippets. Conversations were all weird and out of context. I got words but no meaning. Sometimes I got meaning but no words.
So fucking confusing. Such a prison... can't move... people touching me and moving me.

My hands were so swollen. My arms were puffy to the point that I thought they might pop, but I thought that somebody had told me it was caused by the drip they had going into my arm. Drip? It wasn't anything to worry about. I thought that was what they said, but my hands looked like a cartoon, with big puffy gloves on each hand. The skin of my hands was ready to pop, and it looked scary. It all looked so...
morphine, definitely morphine.

Janie was definitely there.
Is that her name? Shit, it is Marroquin. I remember.
Yeah, Janie Marroquin.
Ronny came with his kid, but he made the child stand against a far wall. I didn't even know Ronny's other name. I didn't know his kid's name. So much I didn't know. I had to learn it all. I had to get up. Somebody else, maybe the station manager. No, it was the news director. I remembered the news director. I would have sworn that Wyatt was there too, but he hated me. Why couldn't Wyatt forgive whatever I had done that was so bad?

Somebody was saying that nobody knew if I was going to make it. I was fading in and out, but that wasn't the kind of phrase you wanted to hear somebody saying in one of the “in” moments. Somebody thought I might be dying. That would explain why they had called my mother to come to the hospital. It would explain why she decided to show up, even though she told me I was such a loser that she didn't ever want to see me again.

"Sean?” It was a soft voice, male. It could have been Wyatt. I didn't remember Rafa's voice. What does an angel sound like?

I grunted.

"Hey, babe,” Wyatt said quietly in my ear. Wyatt!
I remember him now, and he is with me in the hospital.
It was definitely him, and I wanted to get up and hug him. Wow. Wyatt was with me. I wanted to tell him how happy that made me, but I couldn't move. I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even stay awake. There were beeps and ticks in the room. At one point, I heard a grating sound as something around my arm got tight. It really hurt. Too tight, but then it released all the pressure.

That was it. I was so tired.

Wyatt was there. How cool was that? I was so happy. So happy he was....

Fade out. Fade in.
Remind me to fire Rafa if I can find him
. If Rafa was my angel, he had plenty of explaining to do. I didn't care how perfect he looked. I didn't care how much of a prima donna Rafa was. Angels weren't supposed to....