The Sheila Variations

This is how I used to write in my journal

It was August 21.

A Death in the Family had just closed. My going-away party was the next week. I had gotten so sick, and I was still sick on August 21. I had 102 degree fever. I remember actually having some tnesion with Jackie about this because yes, I was totally sick - but I could not/would not take a day of rest. I only had a week left. I won't DIE. I must plow through. Somehow I made it through the last weekend of the show; I remember sitting in my big scene with Kate, alternately chilled and hot with fever - and I cannot describe it any other way than to say that I was totally and unselfconsciously in the moment. I had no awareness that I was onstage, that there was anything in this world besides me and Kate.

I would walk home after the show - hot hot summer nights, crowded summer streets - I felt like I was floating through space and time. My feet weren't touching the sidewalk. My legs ached. Finally home, take medicine, and lie in bed, tossing, turning, hot, feverish ...

I called M. in a panic on the most feverish day. [Ahem.] He was gentle and sweet. I told him I only had a week left in Chicago and I needed to see him. I was afraid that it wouldn't happen. I needed him so much that summer. He reassured me. "Don't worry. We'll see each other. You just get better, okay?"

I lay on my green velvet coach moaning. It was 110 degrees out anyway.

George was going to Ireland with his family that week, so he wouldn't come to my going-away party. We both were pretty sad about it. We had become quite good friends that summer. Death in the Family was a magical experience. He wanted to take me out to dinner that Monday night, so the two of us could have some closure, have a proper good-bye night. I thought that was really nice.

Now.

As far as I was concerned, as far as I knew - August 21st was the second to last of his shows I'd go to that summer, if ever. August 28th was the last show, and I was leaving town the 29th. So the 28th was going to be a big extravaganza. Everyone would be there. Ann, Mitchell, Jim ... I wanted to buy a new dress, by the 28th I wouldn't be sick anymore. I had all kinds of ideas. I wanted to sing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" with him. I had a huge event in my head.

Now.

The way it actually ended up turning out ... despite the tearing in my heart (which I wouldn't have been able to avoid anyway) was "perfect". Meant to be.

I was trying to control our goodbye scene. With the dress and the star-studded night. I was playing puppeteer. I thought it was best that way. To make our private goodbye a public event.

This ended up being an incredible lesson for me.

Because I had to deal with a huge loss in the way it actually turned out. I ended up having to say goodbye to him, and that whole experience, alone. There was no event. All of this symbolic stuff - all of this "last time" stuff - really meant something to me - and it never happened, except in my head. I thought it would help: To sit beside Ann, to sit beside Mitchell, and know that it was over. To be aware of the ending as it was ending. To honor that.

As it turned out, the last time we all went to his show ... we didn't know it was the last time.

We always thought we had more time.

And so I had to grieve that. And so did Ann. So did Mitchell. So did Jim.

No one was there on August 21. I was there. With my fever. Ken happened to be there. And a full audience was there, too. But none of my posse. Me and Ken. And that was it.

On the other side of things, it was, for once in our lives together, not a crowd scene. I had him TOTALLY to myself. I only had to deal with me, and my emotions. I was so sick, too. I had no veneer. I was weak from sickness, I was open, I wasn't dressed to the nines, I had no armor on (sartorial or emotional). I resented that, at first. I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to say goodbye. And yet when are we ever ready? I wouldn't have been ready on the 28th either. I just would have had a nicer outfit on.

So I was sad that Ann wasn't there - but (and Ann got this) the way it ended made sense. Eventually. In the Big Picture. Of me. And him. It was right. Because the first time we met was not a public event. Not when I went up onstage to sing. It was when he saw me through the window and came out and joined me on the sidewalk. To talk. Just me and him.

The universe takes care of you.

It provides sense.

You just have to pay attention.

And accept the sense in the answers that are given, not in the answers you want.

None of this took away from the blow I felt in the original moment. On August 21. I don't know if I could sensorally re-create it. It was so visceral, so enormous - a once-in-a-lifetime moment. Here's another "miracle". I had made a tape for him. I took my time with it. I kept a copy for myself, knowing I would want to revisit it some day.) I cried the entire time I made the tape. It took me hours. I was like a crazy woman, up at 3 a.m., drinking wine, all of the lights on in the living room, surrounded by tapes. Mitchell got afraid for me, but I kept assuring him I was okay. I needed to do this.

I called the tape: "Only Connect." Because of Howard's End. Life changes, life moves on, progress happens, landscapes change. All of this is inevitable. Yet if your mission during your brief stay on this planet is "only connect", you will not have missed your life. Making that tape was life or fucking death to me. It was life or fucking death that he hear it.

And so on the 21st, sick as a dog, having dinner with George, I happened to have my book bag with me - with the tape in it - already in a manila envelope, no less, even though I was planning on giving it to him on the 28th - our last night.

Here.

Here are the words that I need: the chilling words: to think that he could have left our final meeting to chance like that. He knew he didn't have a show on the 28th. How could he have been sure I would show on the 21st? What if I hadn't shown? What would have been his thought process then? Would he have called me to say goodbye? To let me know he didn't have a show on the 28th? I almost didn't go on the 21st. I was so fucking sick. I went on a whim. If I hadn't gone, I would have thought, "Well, whatever. I'll see him next week." And what a tragedy that would have been. A crushing blow, something I wouldn't ever not regret. To not see him that one last time. On our native soil. To have our paths miss each other so closely. Also: to know he didn't call me to let me know ... How could he be so cavalier? Clearly, it wasn't as important to him. Or he couldn't admit how important it was. Of course all of this is hypothetical. It didn't happen this way, but it very well may have. The whole thing was left up to luck, and that is what I find so haunting, so terrible.

Thinking about what really happened - by accident - on August 21 - and how it makes a terrible kind of sense to me, and comparing it to the hypothetical: me blithely heading out on the 28th, in my new dress, ready to leave town the next morning ... only to find that there is no show ... and that I will not be able to say goodbye ...

It gives me a cold flash. And he almost let that happen.

All of this did not occur to me until way later.

George walked me to the door of the club. As though it was my house. We had a big long tearful hug. I remember distinctly that I had that translucent shimmery feeling that goes along with really high fevers. I was transparent. My emotions were not just on the surface. They were the surface. But at the same time, I occasionally had that faraway roar in my ears. I felt very otherworldly, and removed. Like I was some invisible spirit hovering in the back. I have felt that way there before - especially after the whole thing between us ended - as though I were dead and re-visiting the earth.

I wasn't even positive that I could be seen.

I had on a big white man's shirt. I had on paint-stained faded jeans. I had on hightops. My hiar was long and loose. I had on no makeup and I still looked like death warmed over. I will never forget the glassy marbles my eyes had become at the height of my fever. The scary time, the time of the advancing icebergs. So I still looked sick on the 21st. Especially in my eyes.

Nobody knew I was there. I couldn't face going backstage to say hi. I set myself up way in the back. I don't think the show had started yet. The crowd was pretty sparse. I found a stool back by the sound board and perched there, sipping water, listening to the roar of the wintry sea in my ears, riding the waves of my fever. I had no connection to my flesh, not really, but then suddenly I'd be shivering, or burning up, or achey. I should have been home and in bed. No doubt about it. This was Jackie's worry.

But the universe knew I had to be there, and so the universe made sure I was there.

Somewhere, halfway through the first set it happened. He said something about the following week, then he stopped himself and said, "Oh, I won't be here next week ... so, the week after then ..." Totally casual, no big deal to him.

But sitting in the back, on my stool, I felt the bottom fall out. And then I was falling. I could not comprehend it. It was too immediate. Too big. I was holding on to something during this freefall - but everything else froze. I mean, the show went on. I could perceive that sounds were still being made, but I could not hear them. It was only the roaring beat of my heart that I could hear.

And I could not understand. Immediately.

It was beyond the pale.

I had to realize it. I fought it - but I had to realize it. It seemed essential that I realize what was happening. Tonight's it. Tonight's the last night. There will be no extravaganza on the 28th. Where I can be fabulous and a star and appreciated.

This is it.

Ready or not.

This is it.

That's another thing that turned out to be a blessing. I was not "ready" to say goodbye to him. I can overthink and overintellectualize something to death. But on August 21, I couldn't plan or orchestrate anything.

So I was thrown off guard, not to mention having a high fever. I had to deal with everything at once. I had to let go - there and then - of the thought of me and Ann at our last show on the 28th - I had to say goodbye to the fantasy - there and then.

And it changed everything. It was like an acting exercise where suddenly the stakes are raised 100% higher. And everything suddenly becomes more interesting. Immediate.

The whole atmosphere changed when I learned that this - right now - would be the last time. Whereas before, I was floating in my haze of sickness, watching him up on stage, aware of the dull ache I always felt when I would go to his shows, a low level drone of pain under the smiles ... and after the realization, it was like I was WHIZZING through space at full speed, heading directly for him, the air full of pure oxygen and knifes, high-pitched music, silver particles. Hang on ... this is IT. I'm not ready. We don't care! This is IT!

Hazard.

I cannot express the ineffable.

And somewhere admist all of this white-hot noise and internal chaos, I felt this hot bath of relief, immense, that I happened to have "Only Connect" in my bag. How fortuituous. Why was I carrying it that night? No reason. I didn't plan on giving it to him until the 28th. And so the gods smiled.

For once.

After the first assault of pain, a painful painful sweetness came. A love so sweet and big and yearning that I thought I might die. My love for this man physically hurt me. So I would wait it out, pressing in on my heart with my hand, riding the waves of it, like an earache, a stomach flu.

I sat in the back, in my dark feverish corner, no one knew I was there, with tears pouring down my ravaged face. The music blared, music made by him, and I sobbed into my hands, watching him through my fingers, aching, aching, aching.

I wasn't, of course, just crying about the letting go of August 28. I was crying about the letting go of him. That old hurt. And once the tears started to come, basically I cried off and on for the rest of the night. They woud not stop. It became a casual thing, my tears. I said, in the van ride home, "Do not be alarmed. I just can't stop crying. You can keep talking. Seriously, don't mind me. Ignore the tears."

My resistance was already shot, burned off by the fever. I could fight nothing, and it didn't even occur to me to fight. If our last night had been the 28th, I would have fought it the entire way.

Heart breaking, my heart singing out over and again.

Goodbye goodbye goodbye

Hidden in the back, shadowed, protected, disguised, laughing with love at his stupid jokes, clapping and clapping and clapping.

I was all alone. And it was right that it turned out the way it did. That I could sit in the dark, alone, watching the show, weeping, laughing, having a totally private experience. It was a gift, actually. It had its sad side, but it was a gift.

It had a symmetry to it. As the whole thing with him did. The first night - I went to go see him by himself. And it was in August. I wore my tight black button down shirt, my tight olive-green mermaid skirt. I sat, come to think of it, exactly where I sat on August 21st, on a stool by the sound board, in the back, in the dark. And I was alone that first night. Heady with freedom and independence.

But then - years later - sitting there, a week before leaving town - alone still, and independent, but "heady with freedom"? Not quite. Oh yes, I was free. But heady? Far from it.

It is a terrible thing to be free.

I did not let him know I was there. Not yet. Then he took a break. I tried to get myself together before I saw him, but it was impossible.

I moved up to the side of the stage during the break. I would watch the second set from there. I did not go backstage. I sat quietly behind the speakers, still invisible - quiet, pale, in tears - quiet constant tears.

Eventually Ken emerged from backstage - as did Jim - to find teary-eyed Sheila hiding behind the speakers. Jim, of course, gave me a big hug. He was always so sweet and so good to me. And Ken totally took care of me, in his own way, for the rest of the night. Ken had come to see Death in the Family, on his own initiative, had heard me talk about it, got tickets, and came to see it. I had no idea he was there.

Ken had never seen me in such a state as I was in on the 21st. But he handled it beautifully. He let me alone, and yet he stuck by me. We stood up against the wall together and watched the second set. I was totally split open, I couldn't hold anything back. Every song played, I felt it again. The associations, the memories, my love for him. I had no Kleenex. The cuffs of my big white shirt were drenched.

Before the show started, Ken and I were talking. I said, broken, "So this is my last show, Ken. This is it. I thought he would be playing next week."

Ken didn't say anything for a while. Then he told me that he was a huge Ramones fan - and he saw them 40 times or something. And he told me that when they broke up, they went on tour one last time, and Ken saw them play, knowing that this was it. This was it. The end of an era. Then he said, with his ducktail, and his thick-rimmed glasses, "Tonight is a close second to that."

It killed me.

I am loved. I am loved. And it has changed me forever.

During the second set - He had Ken sing - "Summertime Blues" - I was so glad he had Ken sing on my last night there. It meant a lot to me. I knew he did it for me. It was like my own private show. And at some point, during the second set - he started doing shots. He and I hadn't spoken yet and I had no idea what he was going through. I had no idea if he was conscious that we would not see each other again, that this was it - did he get it? Is he aware of the moment?

And once the shots started being tossed back - that's how I realized: he knows.

Now. Here is what happened next. Some girl, a regular in his audience, was moving to Thailand. For her, it was a very meaningful experience: her last show!! He had no fucking clue who she was. She was sitting in the back - and she must have sent a note up to the stage, requesting a song for her last night. He was in the middle of doing his third shot and he said, "That one went out to so and so ... this is her last night here because she's moving to Thailand ..."

Let me preface all of this by saying I was not expecting what happened next to happen. I was so discombobulated by the change in schedule, I knew it was my last show, but I was so sick - I was so plain - I didn't feel festive or dressed up or ready to sing with him for the last time. I was not ready. It became an intensely private night for me, even though I was surrounded by a crowd. It was just me, in the dark, focusing on him. As though he were the Planet Earth and I was standing on the moon looking back at him. Being able to see him whole. Surrounded by eons of empty cold space, unfamiliar lunar landscape - but there he was, thousands of miles away - a mindblowing sight, something to revel in. Look at him! My home! How I love my home. Why am I so far away.

After the farewell speech for Thailand Girl, he pulled the rug out from under me by saying, "It's somebody else's last night here --" It took me a second to realize what was about to happen, and when I did I just wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. I couldn't be cool. And in retrospect, for that, I am thankful. Because what followed was one of the most intense love-bombing 5 minutes of my whole life - and I was not removed from the experience in any way, I had no time to sidestep the intensity of it (which would have happened if I had had time to gear up for it and to orchestrate the whole thing.) So when I realized what was next, I felt this plummeting, a stunned stasis, and my mind panicked - Oh God - not ready - no no no - not ready - no!!

I'm avoiding writing it down. By writing it down I finalize it. It becomes a thing. The writing becomes the experience, rather than the experience itself.

"It's somebody else's last night here ... this someone has been -- an important -- part of ... my shows ..." (I was Alice in Wonderland, drowning in my own tears) He joked, "Lord knows, she's bailed my ass out of trouble - times without number - " (Jim and Ken burst into laughter) "But it's time for her to move on. She's moving to New York City. This is right for her. It's where she needs to go." Everything was silent, and full, and horrible, and wonderful. It was like we were the only two people in the world, and everything of importance was being left unsaid. But we knew. We knew. He said, "But of course she'll come back and visit us, won't she?" And he looked over at me.

I must be honest. At that point, the thought of ever coming back to "visit" was so awful that it could not be contemplated. No.

This is the kind of love you never recover from.

I knew what he needed from me to make the moment complete, in terms of entertainment value. He needed me to call out cheerily, "Of course I'll come back!" But I could not do it. I was not being manipulative. I was being truthful. I could not speak. I just stared up at him, mute. ".....come back and visit us? ..." Visit? What a pale flimsy excuse for life.

It was only a brief pause, he was looking down at me, and I up at him - and I could see him die in that pause. Then he said, panicked - "Please say yes."

He needed my voice. My promise. This whole exchange was edged with humor on his side, he was in front of the crowd - but the core of it was deadly serious.

Please do not say to me that I will never see you again.

Please come back and visit.

Say you will.

Say you will.

I could not get any voice out, so I just nodded. Sort of cursory, I admit. Okay, okay, I say yes ... It was only to stop that look in his eyes.

I sometimes wonder if my pain is just a pale reflection of his pain.

The thought has crossed my mind. He has never told me so I don't know. But then, waking up at 3 a.m., that one time, feeling what I felt then, that Bob Dylan song: "You're gonna have to leave me now, I know. But I'll see you in the stars above, in the tall grass,in the ones I love, You're gonna make me lonesome when you go."

That was all there in his "Please say yes!"

And then he said, "So." and he raised his shot glass. I looked out at the entire club - and the whole club raised their glasses into the air, all of them looking at me.

"To Sheila!" he said.

Then the whole crowd screamed, "To Sheila!"

This really happened.

Then the cheering began. Endless. I wilted against the wall - bombarded with images - every single face burned into my memory - all of those raised glasses at me - the roar of the voices - the smiles - the love. They were all screaming as loud as they could, and it kept coming at me and coming at me. I held my hand over my bursting my heart. I managed to blow a very meaningful kiss at everyone - and I was in the perfect emotional place for such a gesture. I meant it.

I looked up at him once during this part and he was looking over and down at me - nodding - nodding, like, "You see that? You see what you have done? You see that?" We looked at each other, and I bombarded him with what was in my heart, and he took it. He saw it. He nodded. It was just us. Then he said into the mike, softly, over the cheers, but looking down at me, "You are loved, Sheila O'Malley. You are loved."

Caritas.

That moment has seemed to me either tragic or beautiful. It depends on where I'm standing.

The end was so near.

I forced myself to not cower behind the speaker. I knew, instinctively, that I had to let myself be blown to pieces like this. That it would not come again. I would be cheating myself. So I faced the crowd - all of those faces - with mouths wide open and cheering - beer glasses shoved in the air at me - and I held my hand over my heart, I had this huge smile on my face - and I bowed. The cheering intensified. I bowed again. It was - it IS - one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened to me.

I think for him too. I saw his face. The depths of that quiet Irish soul were stirred. Shaken.

Everyone wanted me to sing. I knew I couldn't. I was wrecked. I couldn't clamp down against it, I hadn't had time to get ready. I was sick, and I could not sing in that state. He came away from the mike and walked over to where I was - and the club had begun to chant my name, over and over, like some strange Chicago Sheila cult - and he leaned down towars me, my big gentle giant, I was still pressing my hand down over my heart, with tears streaming down my face - he was leaning down, I was leaning up, we were reaching towards each other - tension - magnetism - repelling forces - he said (and he was all about me, he would have done anything for me that night), "Do you want to sing?" I shook my head. He nodded. Of course. Moved back to the mike to explain to the chanting crowd that I was sick, I couldn't sing.

Once the cheering finally died down, I saw him have to take a moment. Just a little one, of re-grouping. My heart went out to him. He took this big shaky sigh, and then shook his head, as if to clear it out. And plunged back into his music. His world.

Then it was over. The show was done. The lights went up. He disappeared. I sat on the edge of the stage, tears kept bubbling over, but I was so happy too. Ken came up to me and said, "I'm not really hip on goodbyes, so I'm gonna bag out now - I just want you to know ---" and then he got all choked up, in his manly 1950s way. He couldn't finish.

I nodded. "I know."

We hugged for a really long time.

Then he was gone.

So many people came up to me to say goodbye and wish me luck. People I didn't know. People I had never seen before in my life. I was sitting there, blowing my nose, waterworks, they would say their peace, and I would thank them from the bottom of my heart, tell them how much it meant to me.

I was sort of putting off seeing him. He was back there, I knew that, and I was 10 feet away. Finally I was ready. He was on the other side of the backdrop, and he was ready too. We could not see each other, mind you. But we moved towards each other at the same moment and we met up by the black curtain. We stood looking at each other for a moment, it was this private silent "hello" moment - no longer than that - because then I went right at him, or he went right at me - I put my arms up - he stepped into my arms - and he held me - I held him back - the hug expanded, deepened, tightened - neither of us let go. At some point, the desultory tears became sobs. He's not good with that stuff, but he did okay here. The sounds that were coming out of me, howling into his chest, alarmed even me - once I heard the first sob wrench out of me, I was gone. I was choking, racked with it. And he was never a stoic stalwart granite guy. Tears made him anxious, restless, and sometimes cruel. He kept holding me, as strong as could be, but at that first sound that came out, he caught his breath. I heard it. I felt it all through him.

He couldn't reconcile the two things - his dream-girl, his love girl, and the tear-stained girl in his arms.

"I didn't only want Louise's flesh, I wanted her bones, her blood, her tissues, the sinews that bound her together. I would have held her to me though time had stripped away the tones and textures of her skin. I could have held her for a thousand years until the skeleton itself rubbed to dust. What are you that makes me feel thus? Who are you for whom time has no meaning? In the heat of her hands I thought, This is the campfire that mocks the sun. This place will warm me, feed me and care for me. I will hold on to this pulse against other rhythms. The world will come and go in the tide of a day but here is her hand with my future in its palm."

Finally, we both pulled back. He was holding my face, wiping away the tears, looking at me, lasering into me - the first thing I could say was, "I'm disappointed - I thought you would be here next week ..." He made this sound in his throat, like he was looking at a mortally wounded animal in the street. It was a compassionate sound, am empathetic sound, a sound of acute identification.

"I know," he said. (His rhythm was different. He wasn't racing all over me, hasty, clumsy, pawing me, trying to jostle me out of emotions he found confronting. He had an infinite gentleness and stillness and sadness about him.) He did not feign indifference - like he would do sometimes, just to hurt me, shrugging right in my face, like, "Oh well, whatever." He knew what it meant to me. He was kind. He allowed me to be sad. He allowed me to fucking love him.

I held out the manila envelope - "This is a gift for you. I can't believe I happened to have it on me tonight. I was gonna give it to you next week."

He took it. Made no move to open it.

I said, "Don't open it now."

He put it in his duffel bag.

Then he turned on me and yelled at me for being sick. He was dead serious. "Why are you sick?" He raised his voice. He found my sickness intolerable. I raised my voice back. "I'm just sick. There is no reason. Back off." This made him smile.

He calmed down and asked me seriously about my illness, how I really was. I told him about Maureen making a house call. The way he was listening to me - in that way he was - those eyes, boring into me. Searching for my essence. I told him about calling M., and begging to see him, how M. was taking care of me. He doesn't like the thought of M., I can see his eyes go dead when I mention him, but I figure the whole truth can be told now. You set me free, remember.

He asked me 100 questions about my life, where would I live, would I get a job, when was I leaving - exactly - like: what time in the morning (what are you gonna do about it? Show up at the 11th hour? Because I'm crazy enough to hope for that). I suddenly remembered that I happened to have a Death in the Family program in my bag - and I reference him, and singing with him, in my bio. I said, "Oh! I want to show you this!" I rummaged thru the bag, took it out and handed it to him, finger showing him the spot. He read it, hungrily. Of course. He is basically a hungry guy.

And something happened to him when he read it. I hesitate to say everything, describe everything, but I watched his energy change - right in front of me. He has told me he loves me. Of course. But words are nothing compared to what I saw on his face in that moment. It was like I saw his heart get bigger. It got so big that I felt it pressing in on me. He couldn't even say anything. He read the bio, and then just looked at me, with this kindness in his face, tenderness, and he said, "Can I keep this?"

I nodded.

Up until that point, I had been all about my own pain. It took up so much room. But then I could sense the pain he was in, the pain he would continue to be in, how much I mean to him.

Then we were getting ready to leave. He had to go get paid, so he had to leave me for a second - he was pretty freaked out, and all about me - "Stay here, okay? I'll be right back. Don't move." He knows me too well. He knew the odds of me suddenly disappearing into the night in a poof of smoke were pretty high. So he left, and I sat backstage, alone. The tears, like I said, wouldn't stop, but at the same time I felt ultra-calm. And then we left, through the crowded bar, with him escorting me protectively. Holding onto my arm, moving me through the throngs. As we left, so many people called out to me as we passed, "Goodbye Sheila!" "Good luck!" "We'll miss you!" Shadowed by him, pale and sick, feeling very small nextto him, walking out of that place for what would be the last time.

I didn't look back. I didn't take a last-glance-around moment. I just walked out.

Oh, the van. Oh, deserted Lincoln Ave. Oh, the traffic light. Oh, the New Seminary. Oh, the Emerald Queen. Floods of memories. As I climbed up into the front seat of the van, I sighed all that out. A big loud shaky sigh. As we drove away, I craned my neck to watch the club disappear. Nobody spoke.

He leaned over and touched my leg. "I meant what I said back there. About you bailing me out." Jim and I both started laughing, and he was laughing too. "Remember, Jim? My God, I'd be playing a show and people would be hating on me, or not into it and I'd have you sing and you'd turn it all around. So many times that happened. Right, Jim?" Jim was still laughing. "Totally."

"You were my savior," he said, and I just let that comment lie there.

He turned onto Halsted. Northward.

There were stretches of silence during the drive. And at some point, he started reminiscing. About our countless drives up Southport on those sweltering summer nights.

"What was the name of that store that you always used to scream out whenever we would pass by it?"

"WHIMSY!" I shouted.

"Yes! Whimsy! Oh my God - and remember that big weird Deutschland place that looked like it was made for Nazi meetings?"

"Oh yeah! You were obsessed with that place. You'd slow down as we passed it to stare at it."

It was during the drive that he told me he had done "a little reading" on the Actors Studio. He said, "From what I know about the Actors Studio - it's a place where famous actors can go, and work privately - is that right?"

"Yes. You're right."

He nodded, intent on me, intent on the road. I loved how he drove, leaning forward, involved. I remember he was trying to ask me about the makeup of the program, and he wasn't really expressing it but I knew what he was saying, so I said breezily, as we hit Belmont, "Oh, I'm sure it'll be a mecca of multiculturalism."

He laughed as only he could. He never missed a signal from me. He always got me - got my tone, the jokes, the snark, the points I made. Never had to explain myself twice to him. So he ROARED - roared at my word choice, but also roared at the fact that I had understood what he was getting at.

He looked over at me. I smiled. I felt very soft, very loving. He smiled, too - but there was so much else in it. A painful wince. What could he do to bridge the gap? How could he get more involved? It was never enough, with him. He always wanted more, more, more. But he cannot have it anymore. The gap will just keep getting wider. This is the nature of life. But it's hard for him to deal with that. There's a gap between his impulse and what he is allowed to do. It makes him wordless sometimes, caught. He can't reach out and kiss me. And in lieu of that ... what gesture would be appropriate? We never found the right gestures.

He finally said, "Well .... I think it's all wonderful."

Jim's voice, quiet, came from the back seat, "We're really excited for you."

They started asking me about neighborhoods in New York, where I would be living. I mentioned my classes down in the West Village, and he got so worked up he started riffing on his imagination:

"Oh, I can just see it. You'll be walking down the street in the Village, holding books in your arms, and it'll be chilly and crisp enough that it's time to wear sweaters again - and you'll be with a guy who looks vaguely like Bob Dylan ..."

He would do this to me all the time. Flesh out hypotheticals, imagining me in different circumstances - evidence of his visceral involvement with me. It always killed me when he would do that. I loved it, but it killed me. I need to be loved like that. Anything less will not satisfy, from here on out, and that is awful, and beautiful. Awful because I had to say goodbye to it, and never really could say hello to it - beautiful because I almost had it. I got a taste. Just a taste. It changed me for good.

When he went off on his fantasy of me in the Village, I turned away from him, hand clamped over my mouth, pressing my head against the glass. Here it comes again.

"Please stop ..." I managed to say. He looked over at me, stopped, turned back to the road. Jim reached up from the back of the van, and rubbed my shoulders, so nice. Then we reached Addison, and I had Breakdown # 89. I said, "What is wrong with me? I don't want to leave. This is my home. This is my home. What am I doing?? Am I insane?"

They bombarded me with positiveness. With love.
Sheila, it's gonna be so great.
This is a great thing.
It's right.
You're gonna do so well.
Everything is going to be okay.

Finally, he turned onto Wayne. There was my homelight gleaming. Silence fell over us. The end was here.

"Wind chimes," he said, as he pulled the van to a stop.

No one said anything. He got out of the van - ready to walk up the porch steps with me. Once he was out, I turned around in my seat to face Jim.

"Well, Jim."

"Well, baby."

I leaned back and we hugged for a really long time.

"Thanks for the fond care, Jim." A joke from way back when. A raunchy conversation had taken place - and Jim had apparently (behind my back) said something raunchy about me, and it had gotten back to me. I of course then had to go and bust on him about it, "Oh, so I heard that you said such and such about me ...", and he was mortified. His defensive response was, "I meant it with fond care." Now that is a joke that just keeps on giving.

As we pulled back, his eyes were all shiny. I said, "I really hope our paths cross again."

"I'm sure they will, sweetie."

I climbed out of the van, where he was waiting on the curb for me. He took my hand, the street was so quiet, in such a Wayne Street way. It wasn't a main street, so there were the big trees, and the crickets, and the silent darkened houses - but Addison was half a block away, so there was also the urban hum of a busy street, underneath the quiet. And the haunting occasional "ping" of my wind chimes, weaving through it all.

We walked up my steps. Neither of us leading or following. Then his arms were around me, and I went off into Waterworks again - the wind chimes like mistletoe - there was a wet patch on his T-shirt from my tears when I finally pulled back. But I was holding onto his big body so tight - and we said what we had to say. It's all kind of blurry now, that part.

You mean everything to me
I will miss you
Thank you for everything
No. No. Thank you.

Then he pulled back - gripping my arms - he made me look at him, forced me to - and said, with a fierceness and seriousness I had never seen, "And remember, Sheila. Always remember. If you ever have a day where you feel like you are not loved, where you feel like you are alone - just know that I am here. I am out here - even if we don't talk or communicate - I want you to stop, and just know that I'm here and I love you." He was shaking me. My arms were bruised from his fingers the next day.

"Okay, okay ... " I said. That was all I could say.

Then he left me. It was hard for him to do so.

The night started with him being far away from me, onstage, me on stool in the back, then closer - he got bigger - I was standing beside the stage - he was above me - then we were one on one, eye to eye, and then - he walked down my porch steps, getting smaller again, and then he was in the van ...

As he broke away from me and went back to the van, I heard an insistent "MEOW" coming at me. These were in the days when Sammy had discovered a way to escape by squeezing his body between the screen and the window. So I would leave for work, for the show, Sammy would be inside, it was heat wave days - so the windows were open - I'd come home and Sammy would come bounding over from a neighbor's yard. Like a dog. He tasted the fruits of freedom that summer. Unfettered.

So - as he got into the van, as Jim moved up into the front seat, window rolled down - there was Sammy, coming down the dark sidewalk towards me, meowing like crazy. Hello, hello, hello ... glad to see you? Am I in trouble? Is it okay that I escaped? Is it okay?

My face was wet from the tears, the collar of my shirt wet, my sleeves, the cuffs ... I came down the steps, "Hi, my baby boy! How'd you get out?" I scooped up my purring beautiful cat who has been such a comfort to me, curling up by my head as I cried myself to sleep.

Jim laughed from the van, a soft sound, and I laughed too. Everything felt soft and gentle and kind and summery, bittersweet. "He escaped!" I informed Jim.

The van started up - I could only see his hands on the wheel. Jim was on the passenger side. I stood there, watching - Jim called out softly to me, "We love you." I waved my fingers at them. "I love you too." The van started to move, I watched it go. Both men had their arms out the windows, waving goodbye, as they drove up Wayne and out of sight. I could see his arm coming up over the van, so he was steering with his right hand, and Jim's arm coming out of the passenger side - pale arms - waving - coming out to me through the darkness, getting smaller and smaller and smaller ....

The last time I saw them.

I must add something to all of this, having just read over what I wrote. I needed to write it. And I just have. I cried as I wrote it. But after all of this - I know that this is not the way it happened at all. It eludes language. Life, love, goodbyes. This is a reconstruction. A facade. It didn't happen that way at all. The real event is between all the words.

Posted by sheila