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Rearranging Things (Ritual Part 2)
Once again, I am currently preparing for the races that are coming up this Fall season. This may now sound a little boring for most of you so I would no longer share my training, my speeds, or worse, my running pictures. As I get older, I am realizing how important privacy is. The less people know me the freer I can move around. With my anonymous self, I can explore my world with the least distraction, meet more characters, partake in the normal run of things. I had finally reduced my work. I am now finding more time with the few remaining friends I still have. I am spending less and less time with work and co-workers. I wish to spend more time reading and writing but these things can always wait. Over the week-end I spent time with my gay friends Manuel and his partner Marcus as well as Mario and his partner Sam. Between drinking on Saturday night followed by eating as a group the whole Sunday, we all had a lovely time together. Fort Lauderdale is still the place to go to relax and enjoy my gay life. Manuel and Marcus keep their door open to me where I can sleep over anytime. Both of them have HIV and because of their incapacities are always looking forward to friends coming over. They are very accommodating. Manuel has been out of job now and has no car, so I make it a point to drag him out to Borders or shopping malls so he won't feel so confined in their condo. Marcus is stuck on a wheelchair though he is now making progress with a few steps using a walker. Marcus is never out of stories to tell. Every now and then, Mario and Sam come popping into their condo. A neighbor of theirs whom I call Apolonia from Venezuela spends a few minutes here and there. His tenant, a straight personal trainer named Jake lingered with me in the pool Sunday afternoon (before his girlfriend arrived) and I was in heaven watching his 6'4" well built body in g-string strut as we dipped in the pool and talked about Iowa where he came from and body building and the business of fitness. All the while I was staring at his steroid-induced body and applying sunscreen on his skin. Yeah, he said he never had any experience with gays, that he was straight and all and here he was asking me to apply lotion on him. He was such an eye-candy and Mario said I was drooling over him. I guess I was and I was this close to getting his number but, his girlfriend came and I had to switch from gay to straight-acting instantly. I don't need no trouble now, you hear? After all, eye candies are always the same, they're good when you see them, forgettable when out of sight. Occasionally I feel the pangs of loneliness when I am with my Fort Lauderdale friends Manuel and Mario, envious of how domesticated they have become. Yeah, all my gay friends in Florida now have found their partners, and I have become the 'spinster' friend they tag along. I watch them argue about every little thing, do things together. When one coughs the other sneezes, when one starts a sentence the other finishes it. I always tell myself I was very close to finding a partner too before but never had the chance because of the many responsibilities I shouldered in life. My friends understand this so they avoid talking about my loneliness and single-blessedness. They have never offered that I meet this guy or that friend. They thought for the longest time I had Matt for a partner because there were years when I mentioned no story without Matt in it. Matt did this, Matt did that. Matt and I went here and there. Matt had an experience I must share with y'all. Until it dawned on them there was nothing there but plain friendship anymore. They used to ask me where Matt is and would roll their eyes when I say we've stopped dating since 2003. They didn't believe me until I told them Matt found a lover and it was not me. Or did he? I had to make up that story because Matt had stopped telling me truths after the biggest fight we had way back in 2003. What we encountered then was a monster we both could not handle. More precisely, it was something I could not handle. I was so busy at work that year so when I had a free week-end, Matt and I decided to go to Orlando for a two night get-away. It would be a week-end of party : drinking and eating and perhaps 'horsing' around. We were not attached or anything and not shackled by a monogamous lifestyle. It is always wonderful to be with Matt. For one, he is a very good looking man, the type who acts straight and unless he admits to being gay you'd imagine him a young man who is married with kids. These types are my weakness. He has a wonderful personality, the one who would be talking to everybody in a bar, who can be called 'my buddy' instantly by a stranger out of nowhere. He gets pissed when people take advantage of my being exotic or foreign. One time, a bike store wouldn't take back the bike I bought because of their so-called 'no return' policy and when he heard it, he stormed into the store like a cowboy and everybody there cowered like beaten dogs. The store took my bike back and refunded me with no questions asked. He's got the red neck attitude when he wants to, and he reminds me of the Southern cities I worked in the States. He is from Mississippi and his accent keeps me attuned to the voices of Tennessee and North Carolina. Usually, I avoid sharing with him my affairs. I am not saying he doesn't get any benefits from me - hey, I do spend more than he does when we go out. I have to - my work pays better than his - and sometimes, going out with somebody means spending. Whenever we're out and and start talking, Matt gets my jokes very fast. He is one who will laugh at all the anecdotes I share whether it's about Mario or my co-workers, whether it's about my life in the barrios or the cities. He is one who 'gets' it no matter how my accent affects my 'timing' in narration. For whatever reason, Matt stuck with me. He was there during the years I refrained from going out except to work, afraid of getting into an accident that may prevent me from supporting my family back home. I am not saying he was with me in the house or anything, Matt always lived in his own flat. But he was one of the few people who could be there in my apartment when needed. He fulfilled the needs I would otherwise look for in places that might increase my risk of bumping into the wrong crowd or worse, acquiring a disease. For years, he was all I needed to fulfill my biological and social needs. And I survived that way. I got focused more on work, family and responsibilities without getting distracted especially when my testosterone overpowered me. Yet he would leave me alone at the end of the day, to his home I never knew. Matt was a secretive person. It took him years to tell me his real name, another couple of years to show me his place, another couple more years to get to know his family history, where he comes from, how his life was spent. I knew Matt since he was twenty-four years old(and he is now turning forty). But way back in 2003, we took a big step that led into disastrous consequences. I remember the drive to Orlando, the open roads, the orange groves, the wide spaces in the horizon. It was a beautiful weather, the sun was out, the air smelled fresh. We started early in the morning, I was more excited than him because it was my only week-end off after so many days of non-stop work. Due to his familiarity with the roads, he led the way, he drove while I sat tightly on the passenger's seat. All I wanted was to enjoy the view on the side of the roads and upon arriving in our hotel, lay down on bed after lunch and dinner and spend the night drinking, just the two of us. Matt set the stage. He bought beer, chips, some microwaveable items. I paid for the room. After settling our things, we immediately stepped out into the pool. I immediately noticed the ease by which he moved in this space, as if he had mastery of every nook and crook of the compound, as if he had been here many times before. I tried not to pay attention to it. We swam and I eventually figured the place was a gay hang-out. Men displayed themselves around the pool in very suggestive, inviting way. Of course I tried to be 'in' with the crowd, but someone like me who had been laboring everyday for years isn't exactly 'inviting', I looked haggard, my body was out of shape, I was full of skin allergies, I was not exactly a glittering star in a crowd of star divas, and I didn't expect to be in a slut mode in Orlando. But Matt seemed to have prepared very well for this week-end. After the swim and the display we hurried back to the hotel. And Matt's transformation from this point on triggered my curiosity, awe, jealousy, shock and eventual anger. What is bad when you go out with a good looking man is that your looks are drowned and overpowered by his. And I thought he reveled on this. He wore a shirt that magnified his muscles, had a recent haircut that made him look ten years younger, wore a preppy pair of shorts, covered his blond hair with a nice dark baseball cap, took a couple of beers to loosen up and... a group of guys crowded him immediately after he stepped out. I was expecting to spend a little time with him quietly but well, between getting drunk and getting horny, and after my assurances it's okay to 'horse' around, he became just like the American eagle, spread his wings like a whore, soared like a slut and me, the little robin had no choice but stay in the room playing with my stupid laptop. This my friends, was what I got from my lack of familiarity with American gay culture. Honey, this gay guy isn't one who would sit in a corner and talk about life (which, I thought would probably be normal for me). He was here to get some action - and the action was alongside me, not with me. When I said it's okay for us to 'horse' around, I was thinking more along the lines of flirting and having a ball with everyone else. Up to a certain point. For Matt, it was meant all-out flirting with any body and even sex if the situation called for it. After more than ten years, I saw a side of Matt I never saw before. How he got drunk and how he partied and flirted and sexed while I was in the compound. Being drunk myself, I got pissed. And then, as if he really wanted to push my buttons, he confessed to me his escapades as a young man. In his drunken state, he told me wild things he committed I could never imagine he was capable of doing. I've had enough. I told him to go and do what he wanted while I stayed in the room to sleep. I feigned yawning and pretended ready to sleep. His return woke me up by dawn. But I already made up my mind. It took me a considerable effort to figure out the events that transpired that night and I subsequently concluded that Matt intended to subject me to that frustration, humiliation, anger and isolation and shock because he wanted to put an end to our relationship or whatever it was that kept us friends and f buddies all these years. I have suspected it all along but this was the most blatant message I have received from him. I don't think he'd act the way he did in my company if he cared about me. Perhaps he cared long long time ago but not anymore. At that point, I gave him the appropriate response he was probably expecting. I talked angrily all the way from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale, accused him of being so careless with his sex life, accused him of possibly carrying a disease, accused him of lies and more lies, accused him of everything under the sun. He defended himself. Denied some the things he said the night before. Etcetera, etcetera. Words, hurtful words were exchanged. Deep seated resentments were released. Our souls, which we kept hidden for fear of exposing their ugliness were revealed. We just both knew that whatever it was that we had was over. I did not speak with him for a year. And when we spoke again, it was no longer the same. There was no more turning back. All of a sudden, we wanted to find our new 'normal'. As if we were about to be re-introduced to each other again. The engagement of two became a simple conversation. And the conversation was flatter, more subdued, more tepid and rare. In the past, I was afraid that the relationship would come to this end but the fear was unfounded. I was suddenly free and I never felt much happier. In a way, this was liberating. And in a way, I discovered the relationship was a farce all along, it was just a means of getting something out of the other. I still get emails and calls from Matt, sometimes he'd tell me about his trip to Holland or sometimes, out of nowhere, he'd call me from Beverly Hills. As usual, I'd tell him that sometime in the future, I'd like to join him there, in his travels, in the cities he visits. He'd say yes but I know it's impossible. I know deep inside me there is somebody else there beside him, someone I'd never know, someone Matt would be afraid of introducing to me. I play clueless, oh I can play the stupid, mindless, incoherent retard most of the time. I can make another person think I am the helpless, needing guidance, lonely and frightened little kid next door if I wanted to. But that's a part of my repertoire. I am an actor in my world, not revealing the true me. The truth is - I will never find a lover because I am not capable of arranging my world around the concept of love. I made clear to Matt long long time ago that my priorities would never change: family is first, self-fulfillment second, and romantic relationship a distant third. I can not, for the life of me, re-arrange my world so my priorities would be reversed, it's impossible. I have abandoned Matt many times before so I could concentrate on my family duties. He cursed me for sacrificing so much for my family. I am am not intending to compromise that and my personal quests - in running, reading, writing and nowadays, back to schooling, adventures - just to accommodate Matt's needs and wants. I could not and I would be miserable if I did. My happiness is here now - the kids I put through school are almost done. All of them. I am having the prospect of getting more free days away from work. And though I get frightened for getting old and being alone, I bounce back immediately the moment I find myself in the park ready to run. I get suddenly excited when I read a good book, or watch a good movie, or write something like this one you're reading. And because I am adventurous (which I honestly believe is ADD), I am in the thick of reviewing academic books again, I am preparing for LSAT, GRE and GMAT, for what, I don't know, and that's what I like in life, I don't know what's ahead of me, but I want to go there, I am not one who outlines my life, I am not one who schedules everything. I just move on, just like that, I move on. Maybe someday I would become a lawyer. Or an MBA-holder. Or a PhD kick-ass in any field. I don't know. I might even become a famous author. My possibilities are infinite. Return to Home |