Chapter 30

The riots ended three days after they began. Over fifty people were killed, over two thousand injured, millions, perhaps billions in property damage. Though the media still sought and exploited any conflict for weeks after the riots, there weren't many left. L.A. settled into a tenuous peace in the early summer heat, the thick brown air and grid-lock traffic. Most everyone seemed edgy, afraid of each other. Of the police. Of the collapsing economy.

Lee and I continued playing ball three times a week, chatting with the familiarity of good friends over Diet Cokes in the lobby after our games, and often sharing a joint on walks immersed in intimate talks before departing from the club. All that really changed between us was we stopped doing regular dinners and spending weekends together. And no sex, of course. We met at the courts and left separately. He kept the appropriate distance, an L.A. kiss upon greeting, a hug when parting, and I followed his lead. I had it in my head if we kept playing, stayed connected, that it wouldn't take much to talk Lee back into pursing a relationship, regardless that I knew we should never get back together. I clung to hope that my latest personal ad would yield someone closer to my ideal. 'Hope springs eternal,' until reality sucks it dry.

Over the next several weeks I talked to over thirty different respondents to my ad, met eight for coffee dates, and went out with four twice. I felt little connection on the phone and none in person, and no one came close to what I already shared with Lee. By the second date I was so bored interviewing them and feigning interest in their replies I hardly engaged. I was tired of pretending to be impressed by their MBAs and careers in Marketing and Finance. And I didn't agree Rodney King deserved what he got, or that the cops should burn in hell, or that Michael Milken was the fall guy for the savings and loan scandal and didn't really do anything wrong.

Suzanne gave me notice in the beginning of June. She couldn't afford the rent on her limited income teaching music and was moving back in with her parents. Panic set in that I too would become one of the damned as weeks went by without any response to my ad for a roommate. Though I consistently had work, laying out $1,500 for July's rent, along with all my other bills would require going into my savings. And I needed every penny I could collect to move to the Bay, the other safety net in my head. The voice of reason assured me escaping L.A. and my family would be the best thing for me, even if it meant hurting my mom, which I'd resisted for years since her love was the only unerring love I'd ever known.

Towards the middle of June, Lee and I were in the racquet club lobby by the soda machine. He got a Diet Coke for me per usual, then one for himself, then leaned against the wall and opened the pop-top then looked at me.

"I've met someone," he said with a haughty smile.

It felt like he slapped me. "Good for you, Lee.” And the ground opened up and swallowed me.

He stared at me. “Ah, Ray. You know I'll always love you. But being together is a constant reminder of the man I'll never be. I think we need to make a clean break and separate. It's time for both of us to move on."

And just like that, Lee and I were done. I was back to alone, abandoned, sucked into the black hole of want.

7/31/92

Runnin the rim of black space;

Wonderin if I want to keep up the pace;

If I let myself fall in the hole;

Ain't quite sure I can get out no mo'.

-----

No Lee, or weed to lighten me, and the darkness descended through the sweltering dog days of summer. My 34th birthday came and went with only my mother's acknowledgment. When I wasn't writing copy and designing direct mail campaigns, I wrote in my journal, but that was about it. Writing fiction that I'd probably never get published anyway seemed pointless. Building, drawing, taking pics seemed equally pointless. I didn't need any more furniture, and what purpose did putting pictures on walls serve anyway? I played racquetball with Jon and Lavonne, but it was intermittent and quite frankly boring, having become a much better player than either of them since playing so consistently with Lee. I didn't really need the workouts for weight control anymore since I wasn't eating much anyway. Depression is a great diet aide.

Late summer Frankie was in town from the Bay to visit her family. She talked me into meeting her at Palermo's in Hollywood for dinner. The place was packed, per usual, ten or more people standing outside sipping glasses of wine, complimentary for the wait, but Frank stood out among them. Tall, slender, dressed in a tight red cashmere sweater, black jeans and ankle high black boots, the epitome of chic with her thick dark hair cropped short, almost butch, but framing her angular, yet feminine features.

Over our meals she rambled on about the joys of finally having money, her husband, Craig, supporting her every endeavor— her latest going back to school for a BA in psychology in the fall. It took her well over an hour to get that I wasn't barraging her with questions when she finally inquired what was going on with me.

"I hate what I do for a living. It's beyond unfulfilling, on par with demeaning that the extent of my creative achievement is selling people lies and crap they don't need, made even worse with computers stripping away any semblance of art. The notion of spending the rest of my days sitting in front of a monitor hacking out grid system designs is abhorrent. I'm way beyond lonely, on par with suicidal. And while time marches on, and I'm still childless, I'm stuck in hell I can't seem to get out of," I said flatly.

Her eyes narrowed on mine. It was hard to tell in the dim light in the restaurant, but she was angry, I think. "Rachel, for the past ten years you have been waiting for some guy to come along and save you. Assuming you don't meet Mr. Right, do you really want to spend the rest of your life doing shit you hate to get by and waiting around to die?" It was a rhetorical question. She didn't let me answer, but she couldn't ignore the look on my face. "Well, I won't let you. You are one of the most talented, creative people I know—"

"Yeah, well, that and a dime won't buy me a cup of coffee, Frank. There's no money in the arts, except for one in a million, and I ain't one of em. Clearly."

"Your work is amazing. Why do you think I have it displayed all over my house?" She glared at me dumbfounded. "Somewhere down the line if you keep working at it, you'll find someone interested in repping you. Guaranteed." She stared at me then shook her head." Look, you've told me you loved teaching college. So go back to school, get a teaching credential and teach full time. Do fine art on the side. You're gonna have to make up your mind and do something. Waiting around for a knight isn't working. Clearly."

She was right, of course. I did love teaching. It had value, unlike advertising. But it was easy for her to say go back to school with her honey and his money. How was I supposed to pay tuition when I could hardly afford rent? And while becoming all I could be was important to me, it paled in significance to giving life, the evolutionary purpose of enduring womanhood.

"It's not just about making it in the arts. I want kids, Frank, a family of my own." I sighed heavily.

"You don't need a man for kids, Ray. Adopting, even having kids on your own is all doable today. And teaching is virtually impossible to get fired from, a guaranteed income, and enough to raise a kid or two on."

"It's selfish at best to assume I'd be enough for a child. And I'm scared out of my mind of burdening my kids with my insanity. I want a husband to raise children with, inject some balance, stability, model the discipline I so sorely lack."

"Why do you always sell yourself short? You work your ass off. And you're complex, not crazy. You'll give your kids a broader perspective then most parents do. You don't need a man to save you, Rachel, no matter what your parents say. Save yourself. Make the life you want."

I gave her a vague smile but her words did not soothe. She had no clue what living in my realm felt like. Frankie was married to a millionaire, poised to have kids without worrying about making an income or raising them on her own. She had Craig till death do them part, her loving husband providing her financial freedom and a built in support system, a best friend to share her life with. And I did not.

Driving home it was hard to breathe, envy consuming me. I wanted everything Frankie had, but knew for me it was an impossible dream. I wasn't beautiful and confident verging on arrogant after being pursued by most every man out there since puberty, as she had been, though like most women, I'd wished to be. And right about then I wanted to be anyone but me.

Stopped at 7-11 on the way home to get a Diet Coke. I'd used all my cash at dinner and opened my glove box to retrieve the Altoid tin I kept change in and saw the bottle of Vicodin Lee's sister had given me in Oregon to administer to him when he was sick.

Half an hour later, I sat cross-legged on my bed and emptied the bottle into my hand. More than enough pills to disconnect, shut down fear, and want, forever. For a second I felt strong, in control of my fate, male. Then I saw myself in the deco mirror on my dresser, and felt stupid and small. My face looked ghost white against my mess of dark hair. My eyes were swollen from crying half the way home, and through my blurred vision I looked translucent, almost transparent, which modeled how I felt, and lived most all the time now. I stared at the pills in my hand. Take them all and put an end to the gnawing ache of solitude.

Stop, my distant intuition whispered. Think.

I poured the pills onto the comforter in front of me, went to the bathroom for a glass of water and resumed my position on the bed. I looked out the window. Face was bounding after a squirrel in the front yard's orange light with the encroaching sunset. Bolt lightning with fluid grace. I looked around the room. Nothing of value I'd leave behind, and no one but my mother to mourn me. Face wouldn't, of course. She'd be fine without me. My mom or sister would surely take care of her. And being as linear as dogs are, she'd probably never miss me.

My black ring binder notebook lay on the blanket within arm's reach, open to the journal entry I'd written earlier.

8/30/92

Nothing lives on when we die. There is no such thing as a soul.

What makes us unique, different from each other, is simply our combination of chemistry, which begins at conception and ends at death.

Awareness—pleasure, pain, love, lonely only exists while physical.

No heaven. No hell. No afterlife awaits us. And we're not reborn to live again.

Upon dying our bodies decompose, the atoms that remain scatter, and we are no more.

We feel no more.

And somehow, there is peace in that.

-----

Flipped the journal closed with a nod of confirmation to this truth. But no one wants the truth. That's why there's religion. And no one was going to want to be with me. I was a devout empiricist, a realist, overwhelmed by harsh realities most normal adults ignored or compartmentalize to survive. People don't want to touch depression. That's why there's Prozac, and alcohol, and weed. Doesn't matter now. The life I wanted, the man I longed for, the family I desired, the world I hoped for was an illusion, unobtainable.

No partner through this malaise, and no family. I'd affected no one. Nothing would change with my exit. The glass wall that damned me to the outside was almost opaque now. And I didn't care anymore. I was so fucking tired of chasing illusions, ideals, of wanting, wishing, waiting...

I stared at the pills nestled in the blanket. I felt exhausted. I'm done waiting... Take the pills. Go to sleep. Be done.

The phone rang. I just stared at it. No point in talking to anyone. If it was my mom or Jon they'd probably ask me what was going on, and I couldn't make up anything quickly right then. My mind wasn't processing at its usual sonic rate. The phone's ring was loud and jarring. Go away! People can be such a bother. Who was it that said they loved humanity—it was people they couldn't stand? Snoopy, I think.

Answering machine finally picked it up. No message. They hung up. A minute later it rang again. Machine picked it up again. They hung up again. Another minute and the phone rang again.

I grabbed it. "What!?"

"Hi." Lee. We hadn't spoken in almost three months.

Thought I felt a spark of a rush hearing his voice, but if it happened at all the airless blackness inside me diffused it. "What do you want?"

"I want to talk to you." He paused. "I've missed you." He paused again, as if awaiting my response but I had none. "I've been thinking a lot about us. I miss you being in my life. I'd love to see ya, get together and just talk. You busy? Can I come over?"

"Why?” I sighed. "I could have dropped off the face of the earth and you wouldn't have known about it. I haven't heard from you since June, when you moved on. So what happened to the woman you were seeing? Oh, don't tell me. You broke up and that's why you're calling me.”

"That's bullshit. We broke it off a month ago. She didn't want to wait for me to get you out of my system." He paused, either waiting for my response or carefully choosing his words. "Look, I've been thinking about this basically since we broke up. I really want to talk to you. Can I please come over?”

“No. Whatever you have to say you can tell me over the phone.” It really didn't matter what he said. I stared at the little pile of pills on the bed.

“OK..." but he hesitated. "I love you, Rachel. Get it? I'm madly in love with you. Okay? I want you to bear my children. I want to support you so you can pursue your dreams. I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

If I had any brains I would have hung up. Instead I sat there holding the phone trying to decipher how I felt about what he'd just said. The problem was, I didn't feel much of anything. "Lee, you've told me all this before and walked away."

"I wasn't ready yet. I wasn't ready to make a lifetime commitment to you then. But I am now. I'm turning 40 in three months and I want to get on with life, to make a life, a home, a family. I know you want that too. And there isn't a woman I've known that holds a candle to how I feel about you. You excite me, Ray. You challenge me to my limits and beyond. And yeah, that scares me. I've never been with a woman like you. But I want to try and work it out between us. I know there are issues, but I'm willing to work on them, on us, if you are.”

I noticed the pulse of my heartbeat thrumming in my chest and throat. And suddenly I recognized excitement, the first positive feeling I'd had in days. A fragment of light was penetrating the perpetual gloom. And while Lee may be the freight train comin at me, he was on the line, professing his love and wanting to be with me. I was no longer invisible, nothing, to no one. He'd been the best part of my life for almost a year, blackness descending only after his departure. And addict or not, he was easily the only man I'd considered a life with since Michael. "How can I trust you," I whispered.

"I promise you I won't leave this time. No matter what."

A twist of fate, if I believed in such a thing, but more likely the entropy of timing, and unintentional though it may have been, Lee was saving me from myself tonight. My life forward did not have to be alone and childless, or no life at all, if I agreed to try again with him. I listening for the counter inside my head to give me guidance but heard none. I hadn't trusted my intuition, and now I couldn't hear it. I wasn't sure what to trust anymore.

"Trust me," Lee said, as if reading my mind again.

I couldn't help smiling, followed by a pleasing warmth engulfing me just beyond the numbness.

"If I asked you to get back together and give it another try what would you say?"

"Are you asking?"

"Only if you say yes."

---

I'd put the pills back in the bottle after hanging up, and put the bottle in the wooden box on my nightstand. I'd been ready to play the hand that had always sated me in my darkest times— that I was in control of my destiny, could be the master of my demise when living was too hard for too long. The pills would be there if blackness descended again down the line. In the meantime, I had my best friend back, possibly my knight, and this notion lifted the smothering darkness. But every so often my scalp would tingle from a sudden flash of insight. Getting back together with Lee or swallowing the bottle of Vicodin was basically the same thing. I was still running away from myself, looking outside for something or someone to save me.

We went back to playing racquetball three times a week, hung out together after the games and every night in between. Weekends we went to movies, plays, concerts, explored museums and tide pools, new restaurants and old favorites. Lee bought a $3,000 Japanese block print of Mt Fuji because I said I liked it, and a $2,500 Stratocaster even though he couldn't play guitar. Saving money was clearly not on his agenda. We got high consistently as well, having agreed we could use together until we married and were ready to work on having kids.

I was trying to be compromising. That's what all my friends kept telling me, what my mom and sister had been selling me all these years. Relationships were about compromise. And smoking weed seemed a small thing, especially compared to real drug addicts or alcoholics. Oddly, even the buzz did not shut down the gnawing awareness I needed to quit using, and stop running from myself. But I felt scared to feel too deeply, afraid of the darkness descending again if I examined the larger picture with Lee, the one that extended beyond our shared moments.

We slept at his place or mine on Friday and Saturday nights, and went back to weekly sex as well. I still insisted he use a condom. I was depressed, not stupid, and creating a baby with Lee would be, especially while still using. Weeks flew by and life moved forward. I applied to UCLA's graduate Education program for the winter quarter to begin the process of getting my Teaching Credentials. It felt like I was on the road to changing my life, finally back on track, coming out of a long, very dark tunnel.

Lee had gone back to pudgy over the summer, but within four weeks of playing ball he'd drop much of the weight, though, like me, he'd probably always be smooshy vs hard. He invariably ordered the heaviest, fattiest foods on the menu, and insisted on following the meals with extravagant desserts. I generally took a bite or two of Lee's and then let him finish the rest, which he always did. I tried not to let his gluttony bug me since racquetball was keeping him in shape. I became accepting, a safe harbor. We didn't fight or argue virtually at all. In fact, we had only one minor conflict the entire six weeks we'd been back together.

Early October, over dinner at the Chart House in Malibu, Lee told me he'd planned a trip to Vegas with Mitchell and Mike before we got back together. He'd been putting them off but his friends kept pestering him about his promise and he felt a need to live up to his word. He assured me he never intended to gamble, was going merely to 'assist his good friends,' having committed to teach them some tricks at poker and introduce them to off-track betting.

I shuddered, afraid to open my mouth, lest recriminations pop out, but could not help myself from injecting reality into his Weekend with the Boys in Vegas fantasy. “Aren't you tempting fate with your... proclivity to gambling?”

"I want you to come with us.” His Cheshire grin spread across his face like he was ten paces ahead of me. “I want to prove to you I'm a man of my word, that I can and will abstain from gambling. It's important to me. Please come."

"Lee, how come you didn't mention this trip to me before now?"

"I'm absolutely sure you know the answer to that, my dear." He glared at me with comic indignation. "So, you can be mad at me, or forgive me and join us, which would suit everyone since I'm not going without you."

"I'd feel like a jerk with you and Mitchell and Mike, like a fifth wheel. I don't want to intrude on your weekend of male bonding. Why don't you just go and I'll sit this one out."

"Then I'll tell em to forget it."

"No! Don't. They'd hate me. I'm sure they're looking forward to going and I don't want to be the bad guy wrecking it for everyone."

"Then come. It'll be fun. We won't hang out with them. They're just going to want to gamble all night anyway. We can go to a show, or walk around and look at the lights, have a nice dinner somewhere. Please come."

So I agreed. I considered rescinding my offer the entire three weeks before the trip. But I didn't. Be accepting, trust him, though I couldn't. My intuition knew who he was, how he was, and perhaps felt it was time for me to dismantle the fantasy I'd constructed with Lee.

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