Dearest Friend,
As I mentioned to you on the phone, I’ve been asked to contribute to a book of essays about gay men and their best girlfriends. Since I am most definitely gay and you are without a doubt my best girlfriend, I’m planning to write about us. But before I do, I thought it might be a good idea to run a few things by you to make sure that we are both on the same page where our story is concerned.
First of all, I’m a little unclear about the exact year we met. ’92? ’93? I do remember that it was Mark’s birthday, so that would place it in February. He had invited us both to a celebration at a trendy little restaurant on the corner of Washington Square. (Or was it Madison Square Park?) It wasn’t the first time he’d tried to get us together. We’d been refusing his invitations for years; we would just nod politely and smile whenever he insisted that we would absolutely adore each other and then move the subject along to something else. Neither of us really wanted or needed another friend; at the time we were both full up in that department. But that first night, even before the appetizers were served, we were leaning in toward each other, laughing at each other’s jokes, finishing the other’s sentences. Mark had been right.
A week later you threw a sit-down dinner party at your apartment on 16th Street to inaugurate our new friendship. You had just returned from your first trip to Bosnia (or maybe you were thinking about going to Bosnia for the first time?) and you were very much taken with gypsy music. You played it throughout the evening, the same CD, over and over, until finally, unable to contain our enthusiasm, we got up from the table, cranked the stereo, and began to dance. Next thing I knew, you and I were rummaging through your closet and you had me shimmying into an old Christian Lacroix pouf dress, which was (correct me if I’m wrong) the color of sea foam. You wore a bandanna and sported a moustache. Together, we created three separate gypsy-inspired looks that night, complete with makeup and jewelry. Each time we made an entrance, the guests were appropriately astonished. Didn’t someone take pictures? Would you be able to put your finger on them? Maybe I could publish a photo or two along with the piece. Let me know if you find them.
Anyway, I feel it would be better for the purpose of my story to set our first meeting at the dinner party instead of the restaurant. The gypsy thing, the music, costumes—it all makes for a better introductory scene. But can you recall who else was at dinner? I mean, other than you and me?
Looking back, it seems as though everyone was jealous of our friendship from the beginning, because although we tried to include other people in our good time, our bond was as tight and exclusive as it was deep and obvious. People were astonished, impressed, and slightly horrified at how close two people could get in so short a time. We were a club that I finally wanted to be member of. Do you remember riding in a taxi from an uptown theater in Manhattan where we were working together to a downtown theater where we were also working together? (We were so busy.) You turned to me and said, “You know, you and I are so close that sometimes even I’m jealous of our relationship.” Maybe I’ll have you say that in the beginning of the piece, just as we’re becoming friends.
We began working together right away. We had to. What else were we supposed to do with all that energy and all those sparks? It was either work or sex. Sex was out of the question, due to the obvious. I’m not sure that my readers will want to know too many details pertaining to our early theater careers. Somehow theater stories never read as well as they did during Dickens’ time. In any case, I do think a contemporary audience will be interested to know that Barbra Streisand came backstage to see me after a performance of that one-man play you wrote for me. I should mention that—for the gays. But do you remember anything Barbra said to me that night? About the play? About my performance? I was so verklempt at the time, I can only recall the large, floppy hat she wore in a desperate attempt to go unrecognized in a theater that had only fifty seats. And I’ve been meaning to ask you for years: Did Barbra come to the show the same night I leapt from the stage and into the audience to help that man who was having a heart attack, or have I conflated the two events? “Memory is such a strange and selective creature. It collects those details that put a gentle pressure on the heart and yet it discards the ones that pierce too deeply.” That’s a line from an earlier play I wrote, but I’m thinking of working it into the essay and ascribing it to you because I believe it will help to illustrate my point.
I also want to discuss the possibility of including some of your words in this piece. Of course, I certainly wouldn’t want you to feel exploited in any way. For example, there is an e-mail that you wrote and sent to me in 1999. I printed it out, folded it up, and placed it in my wallet, where it has remained for years. Whenever I feel a little low or unloved or too desperately alone, I take out this piece of paper and re-read it. Though it is now terribly dog-eared and hardly readable in its original form, I still find it incredibly reassuring. Here’s what you wrote:
It’s Saturday morning and I just read your e-mail. As usual the depth of your self-understanding awes me, as does the struggle of your soul to evolve and become. I understood everything you said. How do we get loved when we don’t appear to need love? How do we get held when we seem to be self-sufficient? How do we get attention when everything’s okay? So much of my life was about acting out, drinking, drugs, fucking, being naked, depression, suicidal feelings, anything to get the big attention. Of course it was negative attention and that helped to keep me infantilized and little in the early state where my needs existed. Now I’m getting big attention in the world and I am strangely lonely and alone. I am me, myself, separate matter. I alternate between desires to go on mad drinking binges or a fucking binge or to just die. So I get a cold, a terrible cold and maybe that will bring my mother inside me or get my friends to see that I am still needy and broken, but it doesn’t work. Coming to our loneliness, our death. Not being afraid or uneasy with it. And you’re right—love is the only salve. It makes this journey into the center of our self/aloneness bearable. I love you. And as Rilke says, I stand as “a guardian of your solitude.” That’s what friends do—they see and honor each other’s separate solitude. I want to reach in there sometimes and rescue you from the terrible pain of this aching separateness, but that would be undermining you, stripping you of your strength and value. So we bear witness to each other’s standing tall. And I respect you as deeply as I have ever respected anyone. And I know you will eventually feel comfortable standing by yourself surrounded by those of us who see your insane beauty and brilliance and kindness and deep shiny black hair.
So beautiful.
But it just occurred to me that perhaps you’d rather not include the business about drinking, drugs, fucking, being naked, depression, and suicidal feelings. It’s your call. But in the event that you do agree to publish this as part of the essay, I will need your written consent. I will forward the necessary papers to your lawyer. Are you and I still represented by the same law firm? Have you seen their new offices?
The other passage of yours that I’d like to include is a note that you slipped to me the day after I confessed to you that I was having suicidal feelings. I had just returned to New York from L.A., where I had run out of money and options. After years of trying to make my way in the world, I saw little visible success, and on top of that, I felt as though I would never find a decent boyfriend. Without real work and true love, I didn’t see much point in going on. You stayed on the phone with me for a long while, trying to convince me, once again, that I was loved, that I did matter, that it would all turn out all right. Finally you got in a taxi and came to my apartment. It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday night, hardly an hour to go visiting, and yet you sat with me while I cried and cried and eventually cried myself to sleep. The next day you handed me this note:
14 Reasons Not to Kill Yourself
I don’t want to give the impression that you and I just sat around being depressed, discussing the intensity of our feelings and considering suicide, because that is not the case. As I recall, we were very busy creating things, trying to move the world, and helping our fellow humans. And I can honestly say that I never laughed as much or as heartily with anyone before or since as I have with you. I also plan to include a few amusing anecdotes about shopping sprees, makeovers, fabulous summer shares, pedicures, parties, and perhaps a list of celebrities with whom we have worked. If I can’t think of anything in those departments, I may have to make stuff up, but I will run it by you beforehand for your approval so that you can pretend it really happened.
Perhaps it’s not specific to gay men and their best girlfriends, maybe it’s just a function of being a friend, but it seems to me that what you and I have always done for each other is (a) encourage each other’s work; (b) remind each other that our lives may be determined by a shattered past, but we will not be limited by those events; and (c) love the very essence of the persons we are becoming. What is specific to gay men and their best girlfriends, however, is that we have always managed to look fabulous while we were busy with a, b, and c. I will be sure to make that point, and if possible I will publish a favorite photo of you and me together looking fabulous so that everyone can see what I’m talking about.
Finally, I plan to end the piece with a conversation we had not that long ago about the nature of friendship. I think it will make a good wrap-up. I can’t seem to recall if it happened at Orso’s or at Joe Allen’s. Not that it matters, but maybe you can remember. We had either just seen a Broadway show or I was meeting you for dinner after one of your shows. I do recall that it was a lovely spring evening and it had just rained. Or was it autumn? In any case, we were talking about the nature of friendship and you said, “This is how it works. I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as is necessary. For example, in your case you always forget who you are and how much you’re loved. So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you. And this isn’t any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much. Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.”
And mine, as well.
Always,
James
P.S. There is also the issue of your name. Should I include it, or would you feel more comfortable if I gave you a made-up name? In the case of the latter, I have compiled a list of names for you to choose from.