and I go home

Riding it out took it's toll. The sick feeling I had during our second nighttime rendezvous slowly permeated my entire life and I felt broken and ancient. When I would call her the phone just rang and if I drove by her house she was never there. I was forced to wait till she called me and the waiting knotted my stomach and made me jumpy.

Food tasted like ashes and the knotting made everything turn to lead, and soon I gave up eating and started living on beer. I began to lose weight.

I thought often of simply turning the buzzer off and moving on but repeated calls from Denise and Bonnie kept me believing that if I could just hold on Karen and I would eventually be back together and normal again.

I never knew when Karen would call and sometimes nights lying in bed waiting became too much and I would go to the bar or visit friends. If I did that too many nights in a row she would start calling all the places I might be. Somehow it evolved that she would let the phone ring once and hang up and I became hypersensitive to phones ringing. I always broke away from whatever I was doing and went to her.

Karen would rarely talk, preferring to have sex or sleep curled up in my arms, but over time I learned that Fred was the direct descendent of one of the early industrialists, and his family had wealth beyond my imagining. Karen would occasionally have crying jags and would mutter things like "You made my daddy go away" and "Your just like daddy, you'll start hitting things". The latter was bizarre - the only really violent impulse I've ever had was in the kitchen with Fred and nothing happened there - regardless, it made a lasting impression on her.

Time passed and even at it's glacial pace spring arrived, then summer and fall. My GPA plummeted as I couldn't focus enough to take the tests and eventually I stopped going entirely. I went to work but wasn't very useful - I'm guessing they kept me on because it didn't cost very much to employ me.

By Christmas I was down to 135 pounds from my previous very fit 200. A chance christmas conversation with my cousin Reb somehow progressed into her, her sister PB, and another cousin Jane coming to visit me just before New Years. I have loved these three since I was a kid and had fallen out of contact with them. The thought of them coming was the first positive feeling I had had in months, and for a moment the gray lightened.

We decided to attend Kirk's New Years eve party, and I liked that I entered with three beautiful women - a blonde, brunette, and redhead. I even felt a little interest in things. Just before midnight Karen arrived and as the ball dropped she pulled me to a room in the back and started kissing and running her hands over me. It bothered me and I was pulling away when I saw Fred walking through the party looking for her. Karen saw him about the same time and pushed me away with a laughed "MW!".

I couldn't bear to be around her and fled to find my cousins. Jane was on the phone and as PB and Reb fought to calm me, she gave the phone to me. Somehow the woman on the other end distracted me with her bizarre humor and as the conversation ended she elicited a promise from me that I would call her. Seeing her was somewhat out of the question as she lived a half dozen states away in Oklahoma.

The evening gave me a grim resolve and I disconnected the buzzer when we got home. My cousins soon had to leave and as I watched them go I felt the gray return. The first night without them I watched the little light blink as Karen tried to call, first at 2am and then again at 3:30. It became a nightly ritual as a week and then two passed. Midway through January the light lit up at 1am and continued to blink, hour after hour. Around 4am I picked up the phone and simply said "I'm coming". We had sex and I didn't feel a thing.

Two nights later I was at a party when Karen and Fred arrived. I watched her as she entered and she immediately spotted me. I held her eye as I got up and went to the sliding glass doors of the apartment and with a long glance that I knew would be the last, I stepped through the curtains and out on the balcony.

I looked over the railing - it looked like it was about 30 feet down. I put my hands on the top bar and hopped over, twisting so my toes landed on the outer edge of the balcony. I turned and leaned forward, hands holding the railing and examined things. The snow looked pretty deep and there were balconies below. I looked up and saw the moon. The crescent floated in the treetops and I was momentarily lost in the beauty.

I heard some noise from the sliding glass doors and I turned around, grasped the vertical bars and stepped off the balcony. I let my hands slide till my toes touched the bars of the balcony below and I let go. I balanced for a second and then jumped out a little, falling and punching through the crust of snow. I rolled backwards and came up on my feet and ran lightly out to the road in front.

I settled into an easy lope but was quickly winded. The fact that I couldn't run even a half mile now somehow struck me as funny and I started to laugh. I started walking and decided I'd go to my brothers house and sleep there. I knew at my slow pace it would take a couple hours and as I walked I looked at the sky.

I marveled at Orion, felt a connection with him up there. The milky way arched across the heart of the sky. The breeze was out of the south and I knew tomorrow the snow would start to glisten and in the afternoon little trickles of water would be everywhere. I couldn't wait to hear the gurgle of streams under the snow. I decided I'd call Thea and see if she wanted to go for a walk. I'd throw the big toboggan on a backpack and we could slide and have a picnic somewhere out in the wild. It had been so long since we'd done anything

I spotted a phone booth and called my brother "Hi, do you mind if I crash at your place tonight? Jeff drove me to a party and I wasn't having much fun so I left and now I'm walking. I'll be there in an hour or so - You don't have to stay up. I'll just let myself in and sleep on the couch...".

"You don't have to walk." he replied "I'll come get you. Laura's been worrying about you for months and she would love to see you".

"That's cool" I said, holding back tears I thought had long dried up. "I've got a story I'd like to tell the two of you if you can stay up for a while. I'll buy you a beer... Umm, you do have beer in your fridge, don't you?".

He laughed and we hung up. I took a deep easy breath and walked a little bit till the moon called to me again.

I smiled, looked upward, and lost myself in the sky.