Tainted Love: Take my Tears...

It's a grey day in New York City. From my 4th floor window I can see the Leggo-shaped rooftops with their jagged perpindicularity of chimneys, fences, and everything else that sits atop these tired Brooklyn brownstones. A multi-drabbed horizon of uneven brick, some sagging, some painted with advertisements for the Laundry King, stretches away from me and the leafless tree in the lot across the street. Children's shrill voices calling each other bounce off the buildings signalling that school is out. And I know that today is the day. I will finish what I began so long ago, way back in October. The story starts here and moves in a backwards narrative. Some readers have anxiously waited. Some have demanded that I finish the story so they can sleep again. And today I say to them, "Ok."

That city down south beckoned, ok, not really. My best friend asked me to fly down there to join her for a concert, the Moz show. At this point I had already seen the concert 4 times this year. Some of you may remember from such posts as "That joke isn't funny" and "I lost my new Moz boyfriend" not to be confused with "A love letter to Morrissey". Four times this year. So I had no good reason to drop some cash on a plane ticket to see him again. Except. Except he was playing the Tabernacle and the cheaper tickets were open admission, standing room on the floor. We could get up close this time. So close. Those groupies wouldn't know what hit em by the time me and my friend made our way through to the front. We were punks once. We knew our way around a pit. These sappy little Mozzers didn't stand a chance. Ha! So I went.

She met me at the airport then drove us downtown. She was so excited. I wasn't so excited anymore because the depression had too great a hold on me. I knew I didn't have the capacity to enjoy anything. But she wanted to see the show with me so I mustered all the will I could just to get myself to JFK. I had nothing left over for excitement. In fact, I missed my flight because I slept too late, she had to talk me into catching another one. So I barely made it at all.

The dusky polluted light came from the western sky. I hadn't seen that much sky in awhile. Maybe it was 6:30 when we arrived. We had a good place in line, just half-way up the block. Stragglers were slow in coming which surprised us. Steff watched the people around us, commenting on the good looking men. I didn't care about them but I looked when she directed my attention. She found a new one. "ohhheewww. He's cute! You've got to look at this one. Yum!"

I glanced over my shoulder at the tall lanky guy with the dark buzzed hair and glasses walking to the line. Something in me cringed. He was cute, but. "He looks too much like George. I can't look at him." Steff sounded impressed, "Really? Wow. Well, I get it. That really sucks for you. I'm sorry." I looked back over my shoulder again, "Yep. Looks a lot like him." I shivered. She asked, "Is it him?" What? "Oh. No. George has red hair and he's not that skinny. And he doesn't wear glasses like that." It couldn't be him. She nodded. "Ok. Did you see the nasty girl he is with? How did she get that?"

I had seen her. I said, "It looks like she might be his little sister. He's not acting like he's with her." She disagreed, "No, can't be. She's been hanging onto his arm. Sisters don't do that." True. The tall boy had moved to the edge of the sidewalk and sat on the wall. The girl was still standing, keeping their place in line. She was one of those girls we hate. All little and mousy, with no style and greasy hair. Bland. Lightish straightish brownish shoulder-length hair. Khaki colored pants and a thrift-store orange sweater over a clashing t-shirt. Not clashing in a cool way. She wore round wire-rim glasses and no make-up. She probably wore patchouli oil.

Steff asked again, "She is so ugly. How did she get that?" This time I answered. "The same way they all do. She played the helpless feeble fragile little girl routine. The 'oh please save me, I'm just a drowning kitten in the rain, you big strong fine man you.' And when that fails they play dirty." Directly proportional to their level of attractiveness comes the cunning. The girls who 'forgot' to take the pill, or tell any lying story or manipulative ploy because they don't want to be alone. We both got angry. I thought about George. And how some girl convinced him to live with her as a roommate and a few months later got him to marry her. Some wench like that one over there. These weren't kind thoughts, definitely not Christian thoughts. I was unhappy and here was this sniveling mouse standing behind me with a man who looked like the one I had lost.

My friend said she needed to go to the facilities and left me for a few minutes. I sat down on the wall and continued to wait. The boy was still sitting on the wall a few feet from me. Now that I faced the street, I could clearly see the girl. She looked at me. So I looked at her. She stared. I turned away and felt ashamed for my mean thoughts. She must have seen us looking at them. But I had only glanced a couple times. It was Steff who had stared unabashedly. And now Steff was gone. I looked at her again. She glared at me and scowled. What? What was up with that? It was totally uncalled for. Yet she continued. I couldn't figure out what her problem was unless . . . Was that her? If that is George then he would've recognized me and told her who I was. Being the last girlfriend before her and the one she had to take him away from meant she could only hate me. This girl here, on this sidewalk, hated me. And she wanted me to know it. She lifted her left hand up to touch her hair and I saw a small wedding ring. Gulp. They're married? --

It started getting darker. The girl shivered and said something to the boy. He stood up reluctantly and went to her. He said, "You're cold?" and put his arms around her and kissed the back of her head. On his outstretched arms I saw big black fresh tattoos. That wasn't him, George had no tattoos, but these were new. I hadn't seen him in a year and a half though. But this guy was too pale and pasty. He could dye his hair and get tattoos but he couldn't make his freckles go away. Unless he stayed out of the sun. No. That was not George. His face was different. Ok, that was settled.

My friend returned and I told her what happened, with the staring and the ring. She said the girl must have seen us looking at her. Sure. I could tell she didn't believe it either. Shortly after this the doors opened and we walked forward to wait for the security frisk. Duly handled, we went inside and then through to the floor. We rushed to get as close as we could. We were 2 people away from the stage barrier. Steff started chatting with the women in front of us and the drinking man next to us. I quietly processed the information at hand. The ring, the hateful stare, what if it is George? Why didn't I recognize him? And since when does he like Morrissey --Mr. Old skool punk ska boy with the steel toed boots? Unless he came for her.

I watched the doors. I wanted to see him when he came in. And there they were. They went towards the center. We were stage left. This guy was tall, so his head stood above everyone. He stood about 15-20 feet away from me. Then I saw his profile. My stomach dropped. That was his chin. That was him. I had a photo of him that was a profile shot of him lying on the beach, I took it while lying next to him on the blanket. I had kept that photo on my dresser for a year after I moved to New York. What the hell? How come I hadn't recognized him outside? What's happened to him? I got sick. He looked so unhappy.

Steff noticed. I told her. She said, "Are you sure?--Ok, I'll go kick his a**. If you want me to I will, you know." She hugged me. The drunk guy next to us patted me on the head. He said, "Hey, you look too serious. Knock it off." I said, "Excuse me but the love of my life is standing over there with his ugly wife that he left me for." He withdrew his hand and said nothing. Then Steff said, "I wish we could know for sure. I'm going to call his name. Look and see if he turns." So I got him in view and she belted out "HEY GEORGE!" He whipped his head around and saw us. I ducked down trying to hide. Steff didn't, but they had never met. Confirmation. George. I had to hold onto my friend because it felt like I was falling down. My eyes welled up. She told me I was shaking.

"I thought I was over this. I thought I was over him." The room swam and water slowly broke from my eyes and rolled down my face. I didn't recognize him because he's so unhappy. He had lost so much weight. He looked awful! He didn't smile once. That's what was wrong with his face. When I knew him he never stopped smiling. Unless he was thinking. Steff said, "He knows he f*d up." What a stupid waste! We could have been happy. He threw it all away for nothing. She seduced him, they screwed, he felt guilty, she got him to marry her. She doesn't love him the right way. He told me he would never elope because it would break his mother's heart and it did. She must not have cared.

When the show started I tried to sober up. The opening act began, some hot Irish guy on an acoustic guitar. Usually I don't like that kind of thing but he was good. The irony of an Irish man singing about Ireland this night was not lost on me. He reminded me, vividly, of my summer romance. My pain became a multi-dimensional longing and regret for what I had lost. On two continents. This man's sexy mocked my misery. When he spoke with his Dublin accent I heard someone else. When he wailed about sadness I saw the western hills with their crumbling fences and another man's face with his tide-pool eyes. It made me laugh out loud-- I laughed for a long time in the middle of his set. Proof that God has a sense of humor. Here in this room I faced my last two heartbreaks. And added a new one.

~I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does~

Reading this, I realize how pathetic I sound. In an attempt to rescue my imaginary dignity, I make the following excuses for myself: at the time I was a woman in the depths of depression, who didn't even care that Morrissey was 3 feet in front of her, I was on the rag and hormonal, single, lonely, failing at work, failing at life and a 28 year old virgin. And there stood the one man whom I had loved. There stood what could be my last chance for marriage. And he was miserable too.

The show went on. I tried to enjoy it and concentrate on the performance. But I kept glancing at George. He kept looking towards us too. Lucky for me the music was appropriate to my mood so I could lose myself for moments in the drenching sounds; in the honeyed voice dripping words of my sorrow. The show wasn't as good as the others I'd seen this year. Moz didn't like the audience. He was kind of disgusting about it. When he took off his shirt he rubbed it all over his chest to wipe off the sweat, as usual. But then he stuck the shirt down his pants and wiped the sweat off his crotch, front and back. Then he threw the shirt to the crowd. Ew.

Oddly, when the shirt landed on the people, George lunged for it. Wha? I watched as he grabbed it and fought off the maddened fans. He was violent. The look on his face was frightening, pure fierce anger. I'd never seen him like that before. Some guy behind me said, "Did you see that guy's face?" My sadness for him deepened. What's happened to him? I remembered that summer night before I moved, after the Weezer concert when we couldn't get out of the parking lot--how he climbed on the roof of his car and started dancing. His car stereo was broken so we had to listen to his sorry boombox. I sat on the door to hold the boombox up for him to hear, while he danced. In all his glory he danced, for the whole world to see. That it did, some people cursed at us but most cheered. We laughed so much I thought my face would break. I never wanted to leave that parking lot. Now this. He was fighting with wimpy guys for possession of a ball-sweat soaked shirt belonging to a dirty middle-aged pop star. Oh, Icharus! How you've fallen!

Near the end of the show, we made eye contact. Up to that point he had avoided my gaze. I don't know how it happened but but our eyes met and locked onto each other's. All I could see were his big blues and I forgot everything else. Unaware of myself, I automatically smiled at him and mouthed the word, "Hi." He frowned and turned away. That was all. We had an accidental and inappropriate moment.

The show ended. Steff and I went outside. We waited on the front steps watching people exit. She was looking for another friend and I hoped to see George so I could at least say hello properly. We didn't see them. In the car back to her place we talked over what happened. I cried, but not for myself. It broke my heart to see him like that. He wasn't in love with her. He didn't look at her the right way. Steff suggested he got into that shirt fight as a way to let off the frustration of seeing me again. He had to face his mistake that night too. And he was the one worse off for it. If their marriage lasted it wouldn't be pretty. He wasn't in love and she loved him selfishly. It was so sad.

I guess I needed closure. I got it. All I had in the way of closure before that night was the rumor of his marriage and 6 months later a phone call from him telling me 'they' were going to see a band that made him think of me because he knew I liked them. After that I never heard from him again. I had thought I was over him. Obviously, I still had some feelings, but now I am really over it. My desire for him turned to pity and disgust. This was his choice after all. And a very stupid one at that. I'll do better. I prayed for his and their happiness and really meant it this time.

Epilogue:
Read Campbell's myth made real