every window. I slip my arm inside Gary’s and lean into him. Despite the gloaming, the movie has left me in an unfamiliar state of being: squishy and warm; full of love and hope; open to possibility. If Maude, a Holocaust survivor, can embrace life, then I can embrace it, too.
My life is already improving. Though Glenn doesn’t live in New York anymore, we still talk and email daily. I’m finishing a first draft of Bird and hoping to show it to her soon. And after years of living alone in between failed relationships, enviously staring at couples walking around the Village on the weekends, I am finally one of them. I gaze up at Gary in his dark blue peacoat with his big shoulders and his giant green eyes and am just about to tell him how happy I am, how great this is—how being with him on the street in my neighborhood after a movie feels like a tiny miracle—when he suddenly stops moving.
“I can’t go in there.”
I think he’s kidding. We’re standing right in front of the door of the restaurant—people are rushing around us to get inside where the windows are steamed with heat. But when he steps away from the door, disengages from my arm, and looks up and down the street, his eyes are wild. He is terrified. I feel like I’m with a stranger.
“If you make me go in there, I’ll die.”
“I’m not going to make you do anything.” The street telescopes, goes quiet. He looks like a cornered animal. I stand perfectly still, trying not to make any sudden moves.
He tells me he’s serious. He’s not kidding. That he can’t take it anymore.
I have no idea what he’s talking about, what’s happening, what the “it” is. I wonder for a split second if I should call someone, someone who deals with this kind of thing, but I don’t know who deals with this kind of thing because I don’t know what this thing is.
He takes a few deep breaths, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I hate Sundays.” He is pacing now, back and forth, then in circles around me.
I blink, trying to piece things together. I know about his father’s drinking, the volatility of his home life during and after his parents’ divorce, the hypervigilance and anxiety that came from that kind of uncertain and traumatic childhood—and I’m convinced that our relationship will be enough to save him. That together we’ll get past his childhood, that with someone to take care of him and look out for him, he will survive and thrive. I’m sure of it. My na?veté is staggering in retrospect, but at the time, I believe my plan will work.
Back then it is easy to comfort him, to distract him from himself, to make things better. When he is calm I take his arm again and lead him away from the restaurant and back up University Place toward my building—into the lobby, past the doorman, and up in the small creaky elevator, into my apartment. After an hour in bed, he is better. Back to normal. He gets up and gets dressed, opens the refrigerator, then closes it. “Where should we go? I’m starving!” he says. Like nothing happened.
But something did happen. Because now I’m the one who can’t move. I’d felt so good after the movie, but taking care of Gary took everything out of me. It’s like we’ve traded places. Glenn was right when she said that he’s too complicated—maybe I am making a mistake, maybe saving him means risking getting pulled under myself. But it already feels like it’s too late. I already feel like I’m in too deep. He already needs me. How can I leave?
Helping the drowning is noble work, the most noble journey, but it can cost you almost everything. I think of Teddy, our one true joy. How can I say I would have chosen differently when Gary has given me this beautiful boy, this good life? How can I be anything other than blocked when I feel so conflicted and confused?
Leaving Early
It’s only nine o’clock, but it feels like a million hours go by as I wait for Gary to come back up from dinner. I haven’t been high since college, and while I didn’t like the feeling then, I realize I actually hate it now. Whatever was in that joint is nothing like the harmless low-tech pot we used to smoke. I’m wired and exhausted, anxious and paralyzed, almost