25 December 2011
(From all of us at The Starsailor Newsletter, which is exactly one person: Happy Christmas—if that’s what you’re into. If not, I don’t know, man. Good luck with whatever you’re doing.)
• • •
Part I:
“The Part That Has Nothing To Do With You”
Once the melatonin wore off, I was stranded on the edges of 4 a.m. I sat up and looked around the room, which was dark and sunken. I gathered that I had collapsed on the floor and fallen asleep. My face was warm with racing blood. My eyes were bloodshot and loose and spiraling out of control. I had no idea where I was.
I remembered one thing, which was at the forefront of my mind. This was it: I’d had a bad day.
The bottle of melatonin was next to where I’d been sleeping. It was open. I’d taken three or four, I wagered, and had fallen into a screaming mad delirium for ten hours.
I took it with the intent to go away for a little while—to sleep until I no longer felt rotten from the inside-out. I had departed from this world and became insane with melatonin—though only temporarily. For there I was: awake and drowsy and stupid at an hour when no one should be awake. I felt worse than ever. Everything was falling apart again.
• • •
I opened my computer and began writing something terrifyingly long. I wanted to touch the heart of a girl who used to love me very deeply. I wanted her to know that I loved her, and that I wanted to be her friend, and that I wanted my two little baby cats back. I wrote, in maybe ten-thousand words or more, that I needed to see those cats. I didn’t tell her that I was losing my mind about it. I didn’t think she’d want to hear anything about that.
I called it, I Want To Know You Forever, or The Thing Became. It is divided into two parts, which are “The Part That Has Nothing To Do With You” and “The Part That Has Everything To Do With You”. The first part is about my cats. It has nothing to do with this girl. The second part is all about her. It says, “I love you, and I’m sorry I hurt you. Won’t you forgive me? I’m trying so hard.”
I have yet to finish it.
• • •
The contents of this Newsletter—Issue 010, something of a milestone, I would say—were originally going to be this letter I have described and nothing else. There would have been no explanation. But I don’t trust the world enough not to hurt me. Too many people out there would rip me to shreds. They would laugh at me in private.
So you’ll have to do with this, whatever this is. This is The Starsailor Newsletter. We’ve made it to number ten. If you’re still here: thank you. I love you for sticking around. It’s important that I write this thing, if you didn’t know. If you don’t like it, you probably shouldn’t read it. (Thanks for that sentence, Tim.) But because you’re here, you’re wonderful. Thank you for being my friend. It’s been a hard year.
• • •
I have done something I don’t like to do, which is to tease a piece of writing without any promise of delivery. That letter, the long one: it’s intended for an audience of one—maybe three. (It is her decision if she wishes to read it aloud to my partially English-speaking cats. Though, their vocabulary is limited to “food” and “treats” and “hungry”.)
But I will share something with you that is tangentially related. Believe it or not, this is a difficult thing for me to do. See: I’m writing this novella. I was stuck on chapter IV for the longest time. I just couldn’t bear to write it. It was about that girl and how I met her. Every time I sat down to work on it, I teared up. It hurt to bleed all that out.
I sure do miss her sometimes. And I miss those little baby cats. But that goes without saying at this point, I guess. Ah.
So you can read it. I’ve since scrapped the whole chapter and have started from scratch. Chapter IV is now about suicide and Texas. It is about swimming and friendship. I have named it “Lone Starsailor.” I think that’s neat.
I wrote it in the present tense, which is heartbreaking to me. I wrote it for one person. It is written simply, but don’t be fooled: it was a root canal every time I tried to add to it.
I have to let it go. I cannot look at it anymore. You can have it. Take it from me.
So long.
• • •
Chapter IV:
“He Loved Until He Was Told Not To”
We are in love.
We have met each other and we are in love.
• • •
I offer to drive you home. I will take you anywhere if you ask me.
We drive down moonlit roads. We drive past places I have lived before. We listen to music and talk. We are alike in all the ways that matter.
You are sweet and wonderful and different. That’s the part I like the most—that you’re different. And you love me. You love me, you love me, you love me.
I park on Old Church Road. It’s dark and spooky and warm. We get out of of the car. We walk through meadows at twilight. We hold hands.
• • •
We are sharing a dream. In our dream there is an oak tree. We lie beneath it—lie in the shade of the oak tree. The moon casts its glow over us and we are hiding from it.
Your face is spotted with pale light. It is outlined by the white orb hanging over us. You look beautiful. You look lovely. I promise in my heart that I will love you forever.
You tell me about your year. You tell me how you tried to kill yourself, and how you’re happy it didn’t work. You tell me about the pills and the whisky. They made you drink charcoal to get the pills out of your system. You say you’re happy now. You say you’re happy with me. You say you’ve never met someone quite like me.
I pull you close to my chest. I connect my body to yours. I want you to take it all. I want you to have everything.
I kiss your forehead.
• • •
We are walking. The sky is enormous and black before us. It is filled with little pinholes that allow streams of light to shine through. We are staring at the biggest pinhole of all. We are staring at the moon.
It has gotten colder. Our blood has failed to warm us. You ask me if we should run. I laugh. I tell you we should run.
We are running. We are racing by fences and patches of open land. We pass darkened houses. Everyone is asleep but us. We’re alive and we’re awake. The world is ours.
I ask if we can walk for a while. Our lungs burn. My chest is fiery and hollow. It is lit up like a Christmas tree.
We are walking down the side of the the road. I hold your hand. I try to warm you up but fail. I’m too cold. I’m colder than you.
• • •
We pass by a fence that is different from the rest. It is guarded by a black horse. The horse is grazing and looking at us with big curious eyes. You reach over and pet him on the head. He makes a noise of contentment. We name him Thor.
Thor is breathing peacefully. He is happy to be among new friends. We stay with him for a long while.
Now it’s time to go. We tell Thor good-bye. We promise to visit him often.
This is the last time we will ever see him.
• • •
In my mind there are words, but I do not speak them:
“I love you, I love you, I love you.”
• • •
A year has passed. It is summer. Spring has vanished. It is never going to return.
fin
• • •
That was all I could manage to write over the span of a month. It really gutted me to pick away at that thing. It feels good to leave it behind.
And you’re not listening, but I need to throw this out into the universe anyway: I love you very much, and I’m so, so sorry for the vicious monster I became. I hope you can forgive me. Please forgive me. I want to know you forever.
• • •
Part II:
“The Part Thats Has Everything To Do With You”
I left Austin, Texas on the 20th of December. With the exception of the night I have described—the night of melatonin and bad dreams—I cannot in recent memory recall a sadder day.
I had a phone conference with my psychiatrist while I was at the airport. He told me I sounded different. I told him he was right to think that about me. “I’ve been happy, yes, but I’m not so happy today,” I said.
“And why’s that? You sound fine,” he said.
“It’s because I’m leaving Austin.”
“It really is a fine city, I’ve heard.”
“Yes, it is.”
He gave me a six-month supply of the two medications that keep my brain on planet Earth. Otherwise I’d be all over the place. I’d be a crazy, ruined man.
He asked me how I was “functioning”—which is an important question for a psychiatrist to ask. I couldn’t take care of myself five months ago, after all. I wasn’t eating and I was sleeping for fourteen hours a day. I wasn’t functioning.
“Oh, I’m functioning, all right,” I said. “I have a job and everything. And I’m getting another one. And I know this girl, okay.”
“A girl, huh?” His must have sat straight up in his chair when he said that.
“Yeah, a girl.”
“Mm, I see!”
Dr. Hyman sure was happy to hear the word “girl”.
• • •
He told me I had six months to find a new psychiatrist—on account of my moving to Texas. I was sad to hear that. I wanted to stay with him forever. “You need to meet with someone in person,” he said. “You’re doing great—you just need to keep it up.”
“And,” he said, “I would like to be kept in the loop about how you’re doing and what you’re up to.” God bless him for that. He sounded like someone who loved and cared about me.
Thanks, Dr. Hyman.
• • •
Before I went through the security checkpoint, when I would have to hang up my phone, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind writing me a brief note on his letterhead. See: Last August I was going to start a Master’s program. I was going to take a few classes to stay busy. But then I felt really rotten and wasn’t really existing anymore. I collapsed and lost the will to go on. I nearly killed myself, too.
So I didn’t take the classes. I dropped out of them. There was no way in hell my brain was going to tolerate anything more than was already dealing with, which was a lot. As it turns out, I dropped the classes too late—and was charged nearly $300 for doing this.
I explained all of this to Dr. Hyman. He would “hmm” and “oh!” as I said these things. I told him that the school would exonerate me of my debts if I could produce a letter saying I was a stark-raving lunatic for a little while.
“Certainly,” said Dr. Hyman. “I would be glad to. And just what should this note say?” I was getting closer and closer to the security checkpoint.
“I really can’t think of anything other than: ‘He lost his mind, but he’s OK now,’” I said.
The good doctor sucked in a lungful of oxygen. He exhaled. “I’ve got it,” he said in a grand voice. “Here it is: ‘Ryan [Starsailor] suffers from severe clinical depression, and was not functioning properly during the months he would have attended school. He began treatment in August of 2011, and was diagnosed as being Bipolar II. Please excuse him of any financial responsibility he would have accrued during this time.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “That’ll show them.”
“Sure will,” he said, making a popping noise with his mouth. “Sure will.”
• • •
As I have said, it’s true: I wasn’t functioning properly. I was a real mess. I was human soup.
I thought about this as I waited at Terminal 8. I was waiting for a plane to take me to Houston, and then Baltimore. It was delayed, so I had a lot of time to think. “‘Ryan [Starsailor] suffers from severe clinical depression,’” looped in my mind over and over.
“Severe clinical depression.”
It sounded so damning. How could anyone ever survive clinical depression—much less a severe case of it? Was I doomed?
And I remembered this commercial for an antidepressant I had seen the day before. In it, a cartoon woman is walking in a park. She is accompanied by a menacing black nether-nothing wearing a smirking cartoon face. He is a sort of black hole with teeth and eyes. When she attempts to step forward, he morphs into a hole. She falls in. He laughs. She struggles to climb out again. And then the drug is mentioned by name, and the black-hole-thing shrinks to the size of a small black balloon. He shrivels and looks sad. The woman is happy. She has a picnic with friends. But there the little black hole remains—waiting. He’s small but he still exists.
How accurate!
This thing still exists in me, and is brought out when I least expect it. It is kept at by an antidepressant and an anti-bipolar medication. It will never go away for good. It can only be pushed away for a little while.
I continued to think about this as I got up to walk down to Thundercloud Subs. I was feeling a little blue. I could sense my little black ballon growing into a hole. I was careful not to fall in.
And this is what happened, which kept my demons at bay: my favorite Thundercloud Subs employee was working. I frequent Austin-Bergstrom International Airport enough to know this guy on a friendly basis. I hoped to God he would remember what sandwich I wanted.
“Hey dude,” he said. I admire anyone who is over the age of thirty and is able to say ‘dude’ without it sounding stupid or forced.
“Oh hey, man,” I said.
“And what’ll it be? Veggie Delite?”
“Yes,” I said. I had been remembered.
“You got it, man. Hummus or cream cheese?” he said.
“What would you pick?” I said.
“Man, I would do hummus. But that’s just me—I’m a hummus guy.”
“Let’s do hummus,” I said.
To the horror of curious passersby, I ate the sandwich in something like forty seconds. The hummus was, without a doubt, the correct choice. I was happy again after that.
• • •
Yes, and so I flew home. I stopped in Houston and then to my final destination, which was the dreaded “B” word—Baltimore. I felt miserable just hearing it. “Baltimore.”
It was raining when we landed, of course. It is always raining in that godforsaken doom-metropolis—in that swamp of fools and fornicators.
Jason picked me up. He’s a wonderful human being for doing that. He brought me a honey crisp apple without even knowing they’re my favorite. “Thank you, brother,” I said.
“You’re very welcome,” he said. We drove off. We drove in the direction of Annapolis, which is the wrong direction.
“Um,” I said. “I don’t think you know where you’re going.”
“No,” said Jason, “I have no clue.”
• • •
Since that dreadful night, I have been staying in the Northern Virginia, which is a place where dreams go to die. I have outgrown this place. It is time to go. I’m only here for the two holidays that occur towards the end of December—and to retrieve my furniture and books and clothes and car and so on. I am here also to say good-bye. I don’t know when I’ll be back.
Here’s what I’ve been up to the past week: Nothing. I sleep until the late afternoon, on account of all the staying up late. Around four or five in the a.m., I’ll pop a melatonin and slip into a sort of peaceful coma.
Jason has a pillow-top for his mattress, don’t you know. It’s full of feathers. That’s part of the problem, too—part of the sleeping problem. I just don’t want to leave that bed in the morning. It’s too uncomfortable and weird and cold outside the cocoon I find myself in upon waking.
When I do get up, it’s because Lucy wakes me up. She’s a little tortoiseshell kitten. She’s brand new—only a few weeks old. I can fit her entire head in the palm of my hand with lots of palm to spare.
She wakes me up, and I’ll say, “Okay, okay, Lucy. For God’s sake.” And then we roll around on the carpet and play little kitten games. We’re becoming great friends.
Our friendship is almost out necessity, though. We’re roommates, and there’s damn near nothing to do but watch the rainclouds from this windows of Jason’s room. She’d be all alone if I didn’t stay in with her every day. So we play some more. We play all the time.
I’m falling in love with this cat. I need a cat presence in my life. It has been over five months since I have seen my own little boys.
I sure do miss those little boys. I bought them some Christmas presents. I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to give them those Christmas presents.
I’m getting sad again. I shouldn’t be thinking about this on Christmas Eve.
• • •
Yes, and it is Christmas Eve, all right. Or rather it was a half hour ago. As I have yet to go off to an unconscious state resembling sleep, I refuse to accept that it is Christmas. I will continue to pretend it is Christmas Eve.
It has been a fine one, as far as Christmas Eves go. I went to a candlelight service at my grandmother’s hippie church. It was weird stuff. I loved every minute of it. They have some really talented musicians there. We got to light candles at the end. The reverend told us to look around the room, and see the light shining. I did as I was told. It was a magnificent sight.
Later I found myself at the home of my dear brothers Jason and Eddie Long. They were watching television and ignoring my presence. I said some stupid things and no one cared.
They have since scampered off to bed in anticipation of the morning that awaits them. I told them they’d better close their eyes and go to sleep as soon as possible, or Santa Claus, the bastard, would skip over their house. They obeyed.
Good for them.
• • •
I am reclining in an easy chair in front of a crackling wood stove. I have just placed another log on the fire. It is cozy and wonderful in this room. Little baby Lucy is sound asleep on the couch to my left. Her little baby eyes are closed, and her little baby tail is wrapped around her little baby body. She is cute as a button. I think I will love her forever.
And I am ruminating on the days that lie ahead of me. I plan to spend the next week in solitude, maybe, in the doom-metropolis of Baltimore. It is the final days of my kingdom. Soon I will be Lord Baron of Baltimore no more. I will then be the Archduke of Austin. But not yet, not yet.
On the 31st I will travel to Brooklyn with Jason. We are seeing Deer Tick and Virgin Forest—and J. Roddy Walston and the Business and Dead Confederate. I’m not sure who the last two are. I guess I’ll find out on New Year’s Eve.
The show is called “Deer Tick & Friends”. Isn’t that nice?
And when the clock strikes midnight, we’ll be in the midst of rock and roll. We’ll be in the center of the universe. We’ll be in the greatest city in the world. I can’t think of a better place to be.
We’re probably going to end up sleeping in Central Park, or in a cafe or a gutter somewhere. It’s going to be a rip-roaring time, I’ve no doubt. I hope I end up with a bloody nose or a black eye or a few scars. I hope I end up with a missing limb.
I must be nuts.
• • •
When I return on the 1st—on the first day of 2012, no less—I will begin painting and packing up my pitiful apartment. I have not been there in over two months. I am not anxious to return to it, as I have said. But I must. And then I can finally leave it and the city it is in forever and ever.
Ms. Steph Malpass has said she can donate her time on the 2nd. We are going to paint and possibly order a pizza. And Ms. Perri Weldy is taking a bus from Philadelphia on the 3rd. We’re going to paint, too. We’re going to be paint like maniacs.
I have promised her we will watch Peter Pan. We might build a fort, too. Why not?
• • •
I have placed one more log on the fire. It will see me out to the end of this Newsletter.
But I think I shall retire. It is late, and though I am not at all tired, it would be a sound decision for me to close my eyes and see what happens. If need be, I may call upon the powers of melatonin. (I really ought to stop relying on that stuff, huh?)
Lucy is still curled up on the couch. I will pick her up and take her with me when I go upstairs. We will share the pillow-top mattress, and make fun of Jason in a language he does not understand, which is Cat. I plan to say, in various chirps and meows, that Jason is an idiot. Maybe Lucy will laugh, I don’t know.
Am I happy? I’m not sure. Tonight I am. That’s good enough for me.
Let’s go join Jason in dreamland, little Lucy.
Happy Christmas, friends.
—R. Starsailor
