– Preface –

As of the initial publication of this story on October 24, 2013, I have been in Ada, Oklahoma, working at The Ada News, for 25 years. In some ways, this short story, Acme Road Bridge, is the story of how I landed here.

This turned into one of the hardest short stories I’ve even written. Equally, it is one of my worst. I don’t recommend reading it, but here it is if you must. 90 revisions. It’s full of lies.

I realized as I wrote this what completely eluded me at the time: I was a bastard of a boyfriend. I talked about other women too much. I talked about “freedom” too much. I talked about kissing her instead of just kissing her. I talked too much.

Alternate title: Ridiculous Counter-accusations.

Alternate title: Being in Love Makes You Look Like a Pussy

Alternate title: Adjectives Like “Soft” and “Gentle” Make You Look Like a Pussy

Alternate title: “All we really have is ourselves.” ~Her

Alternate title: Dreams Make Promises They Can’t Keep

Alternate title: Typical Break-up Crap

Alternate title: Self Indulgent Narcissistic Mental Masturbation

I can’t believe I even typed up this shit.

It’s not an exposé. I’m not divulging her secrets. But it’s the fuckin’ truth. Names and places have been changed, of course.

She wrote in her journal and talked a lot about her emotional walls and her fear of intimacy, which was all bullshit, really. Fear of intimacy? Grow up.

The story starts at the Rainbow Grill. Last year it closed.

Journal 1987: Someday we’ll be a thousand miles away, and I’ll miss her so much.

Playlist:

• Lovers in the Wind by Roger Hodgson
• Only Because of You by Roger Hodgson
• Let’s Go Forward with Our Love by Terrance Trent D’Arby (She sent this to me on cassette the week before we broke up)
• Not Yet Remembered by Brian Eno
• Old Land by Cluster and Brian Eno
• Late October by Brian Eno and Harold Budd
• Still Return by Brian Eno and Harold Budd
• From the Same Hill by Brian Eno
• Julie With by Brian Eno (weird, unsubstantiated jealousy on her part about the lyrics to to this song)
• By this River by Brian Eno (after break-up)
• Every Little Kiss by Bruce Hornsby and the Range (after moving away but before breaking up)
• With or Without You by U2
• October by U2 (the first U2 song she played for me)
• A Sort of Homecoming by U2 (quote on her journal cover: “Face to Face in a Dry and Waterless Place”)
• Two of Us by Supertramp
• A Soapbox Opera by Supertramp
• Red Rain by Peter Gabriel
• Don’t Give Up by Peter Gabriel
• In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel
• Mercy Street by Peter Gabriel

 

Acme Road Bridge

by Richard R. Barron

– The Rainbow Grill –

Tuesday, June 10, 1986

“Where do you want to eat?” I asked.

She smiled. “How about the Rainbow Grill? Now there’s a greasy spoon with character.”

I agreed, and she drove us there in her rust-colored Pontiac. She liked her car better, she said, because it had a higher “comfort factor” than my Volkswagen Beetle.

Inside, we sat in the far corner, as far as we could get from the smokers, and looked around as we waited for our waitress. Painted a dingy white and garishly lit by banks of bright fluorescent overhead lights, the walls were covered with paintings of unicorns jumping through rainbows.

The waitress brought menus, which contained the usual assortment of midnight coffee-house food: steak and eggs, pancakes and waffles, chicken fried steak and okra, etc.

“Ah,” she smiled, “I know what I’m going to have.”

The waitress asked us for our orders.

“I’Il have the cinnamon French toast, fluffy with cinnamon,” Susan said. She held up the menu to show me it actually did offer cinnamon with cinnamon.

The waitress smiled, “Would you like cinnamon with those?”

I interrupted. “I’ll have an order of saute’d mushrooms, and could you ask the cook to sauté them?”

The waitress laughed, then left us alone, and Susan began to tell me about her latest adventure as a news reporter at the police station. The detectives, apparently trying to test her mettle, had shown her dozens of pictures of people who’d been brutally murdered. And she had looked at them without flinching.

I like her.

 

– The Bridge –

Friday, June 20, 1986

She said this about me: “Friendships like this are what life is all about.”

We lay on our backs on the hood of her 1982 Pontiac Phoenix, staring straight up at a billion bright stars. Around us, around the bridge, was the night. The bridge led Acme Road north from this paradise of ours in Ottawa, Kansas, into the country over Interstate 35.

It was past one in the morning, but the traffic on the highway below us continued.

We were talking about school and work and love and our lives. Gradually, almost motionlessly, I reached over to her side of the hood and began running my fingers through her almost-black hair. Little by little, touching her beautiful raven hair more, I invited her into my tactile world.

After ten or fifteen minutes, she took my hand and held it. For another hour we touched in this shy way, wanting more, but remaining desperately cautious, feeling that any more would certainly frighten the other away.

Mostly quiet as we felt each other’s hand, the conversation turned to the stars, the sky.

“I’d like to photograph the night sky like it is tonight,” I said.

“Okay, but you can’t have your hand back,” she said.

Her words were the first verbal acknowledgment that we had even been touching. I looked at her shyly, and we smiled at each other with great relief.

Another hour came and went, and neither of us seemed the least bit tired of each other’s company. The bright, nearly full moon had risen from yellow haze, and now was poised directly above us.

“Come here,” I said.

She stood awkwardly next to me on the dirt-and-gravel road, and I put my arms slowly around her waist, then around all of her. She did the same, and as we held each other tightly in the still night, I thought how bright and beautiful the moon was above us.

We released each other and smiled.

“That was nice,” she whispered.

“Yes, it was,” I answered.

I got back up on the hood of her car, lying on my stomach, facing away from her. A moment passed in silence, then another.

“What are you thinking now?” Susan asked.

“Nothing I want to talk about, ” I told her.

There was another long silence as I felt a dark sadness work its way through my thoughts.

“Okay. I was thinking that someday we’II have to say goodbye, you and me.”

She is starting to mean a lot to me.

Sunday, June 29, 1986

Susan just calls her journals “books.” All together she has five volumes. I’ve got three of them here on my desk. She has the current one at home, and her first one needs to be rescued from her ex-boyfriend, Larry.

It’s been difficult to find time to read them, since Susan and I have been spending all our free time together at the Bridge or talking or listening to music.

I like reading her journals because we care a lot about the same things. Sometimes I stumble across things about Larry that seem incredibly familiar, like those romantic things I wrote all those years ago about Melissa.

I wish there were more of her “books” to read. But if we’re friends the way we’d both like to be, there will be more.

Tuesday, July 1, 1986

Today I turned 23 years old, and to make the day the way I wanted it, I laid on the hood of a copper Pontiac Phoenix under the shining clear stars and watched the night grow old in the eyes of Susan.

I hope she can understand me. A lot of the time when I try to tell someone how I feel, words get in the way. I’ve always wanted to say how f feel, but there’s seldom been anyone to listen.

Okay, here’s how I feel. Susan and I have something very something I really like and really want to keep. I’m sad scared that it’ s going to end.

She has sweet green eyes. She claims they’re hazel, but look green to me. They smile.

 

– The Journal Rescue –

Friday, July 4, 1986

“Hi. I’m Richard. Is Larry here? Susan asked me to come by and pick up a … ah … a spiral notebook that had some journal entries in it.”

“He’s not quite ready,” explained the smiling woman, who motioned to her living room. “Come in and sit down.”

I carefully but purposefully sat on the expensive suburban furnishings. Looking around the room my eye settled on a family portrait, and I instantly picked him out of the crowd.

“Larry looks like Sting,” Susan had told me.

“You must be Susan’s friend,” a voice said from the top of the stairs.

“You’re Larry? Susan asked me to come by and pick up a spiral with some journal entries in it.”

He looked at the floor, at his girlfriend, and at his hands, but would not look at me.

“Well, I’m kind of in the process of moving right now. Could you come back in an hour or so?”

I glanced around again briefly and found nothing that indicated moving; no boxes or out-of-place furnishings of any kind.

“Okay,” I said, and left.

I went by the house of my friend Chris to confirm our plans for fireworks at dark. An hour passed and I returned to Larry’s home, which was not at all far from where I grew up.

The smiling woman sat me in the same spot, and I waited again. Larry appeared without words and stood right in front of me. He smiled.

“Well,” he said, then took a deep breath. “Here it is. Thank you.”

He handed me a thin blue college-ruled notebook. His hand was shaking.

“She’ll be glad to get it back,” I added.

“Thank you,” he said again.

I spent the evening with Chris and his family as planned, then hit the road. About halfway home from Emporia, at the wide spot in the Interstate 35, I stopped for a soda and to read this mysterious notebook of hers that was so difficult for him to release.

The cover was adorned with her handwriting, obviously some important platitudes:

“Life sucks and blows.”
“Utility-tempered vengeance.”
“Alleged-reality alert. ”

The title, at the top of the book, said, “Cool Left-wing Juggling Nihilists for Social Revolution. ”

I read the contents for a while and discovered the real reason Larry wanted to hang on to this prize: their love was immense in these pages filled with her handwriting. And the pain of their separation was obvious from the last entry, which ended with, “Larry, I never thought it could hurt this much.”

 

– The First “I Love You” –

Sunday, July 6, 1986

After we’d been together for a while tonight, driving to Kansas City to find something to eat, I finally told her I loved her. Twenty minutes after that, on a dark stretch of the interstate, she spoke. “Richard. I love you too.”

Friday, July 11, 1986

My life rises from the heat like a mirage.

Last night we lay in the night silence under the stars. It feels so good to be near her, I thought. I want to stay with her for a while.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“I love you.”

I worry sometimes that saying that too much can get old in a hurry, and become hollow.

“Give me your hand,” she said. A long silence passed as we held hands.

“How about midnight?” she asked on the phone eighteen hours later.

“Okay.”

I’m very glad she’s coming over. The knock on the door will feel good. I was so lonely for so long, and now I’m just not any more. I’m just blown away that she loves me.

“I don’t know,” she wrote in her journal the other day, “it all happened so fast, and now, there he is. I love him so much.”

Sunday, July 20, 1986

“Have a good night,” Susan told me.

“I already did,” I said.

“I feel so close to you,” I said.

“I know. It’s a strange feeling.”

Reading her journal tonight I was able to establish that she is afraid, but unable to pin down exactly why.

Tuesday, July 22, 1986

We sat together at my apartment for just a little while after work. We held hands, and when I looked into her eyes I was filled with the feeling: I need her.

It was a little more than a little scary, but there it was. We’ve passed the point of no return.

Thursday, July 24, 1986

“What?” she asked.

“I can’t remember ever feeling this much love.”

Leaving her is a moment that’s difficult to describe. After goodbye, walking away in abject silence, knowing that the best feeling I’ll ever have has just become the memory of the best feeling I’ll ever have. . .

 

– Driving in the Country –

Wednesday, July 30, 1986

We’ve only known each other for only a couple of months, but we’ve quickly found that there isn’t much to do after midnight in Ottawa. So we went for a drive in the country. Her sister was out of town, and we had the use of her white Jaguar.

For the first part of the drive we listened to Pink Floyd’s Meddle as we talked and watched the road. With the sunroof open and the cool night air of July wrapping around us, filling the car with the fresh scent of Kansas farmland, we felt relaxed, at ease. When the moment lulled her into sleepiness, we decided to try the new Peter Gabriel album, So. The tape was cued up to track 6, Mercy Street, a hypnotic song. Our mood shifted. We were quiet for a long time. Turning south on State Highway 31, we rolled smoothly into the country. The rolling hills of this impoverished county took on a new beauty in the moonlight.

A few more miles and minutes passed, the moonlit grassland sweeping past us in the ghostly white sports car. Soon we both noticed a cluster of bright lights ahead of us to the right.

An hour later were were home. Susan and I stayed outside, not wanting to wake her sister, who sleeps normal hours. We stood around at the side of the house. The house is a huge two-story place with several fireplaces. As we talked and sat on a swing set in the side yard, a thunderstorm approached from the west. It was a summer storm, full of lightning and a cool rush of wind. But the rain edged just north of us, barely sprinkling the trees that swayed in the breeze above us.

“I don’t know how to tell you how much I love You,” she said.

As I drove home, it rained in earnest. I was very happy to come home and sit inside, thinking of her as the rain splashed outside my window.

Friday, August 8, 1986

I wonder if she’s awake right now, if she’s thinking a little about me. I miss her, wish she were here. I like the way I can slide my arm around her, and she does the same and smiles. These days it’s difficult to let go to say good night. Her smell lingers in my head; the warmth of being in her arms fades, a memory. I don’t want to lose it.

 

– Be with Me –

Thursday, August 28, 1986

Susan and I laugh a lot together. We hold and touch each other a lot too. At the Bridge we are very intimate. I feel magnificently close to her, and it is accented by our physical closeness under the stars at I-35 and Acme Road. I like laughing with her. It seems at times like these that I can’t remember feeling this much before. Time at the Bridge with Susan is like a dream coming true.

The Bridge was suffocated in fog tonight, a drenching, blinding soup that made the entire scene a semi-dream, semi-nightmare from the darkest heart in an asylum.

“Someone with a real heart is holding me,” I told her.

“Will you be with me when I leave?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, “every time you leave.”

We were sad for a while after that, thinking about the day when we aren’t together any longer.

“That isn’t today,” I said.

True love.

“Ask me what I’m thinking,” she said last night.

“What are you thinking?”

“I love you,” she answered, “boy, do I love you.”

Saturday, September 6, 1986

There was something especially real about the half-conscious state she and I shared tonight. It was a long, long moment, silent and steady, with only the wind for conversation.

Earlier tonight she had reported on a murder case, and she had murder suspects on her mind, which led her to be afraid of being blown away herself. I held her close, but it only helped a little. She’s quite attached to her fears, and she went home still a little afraid of the night.

 

– From Inside –

Wednesday, September 24, 1986

Try to see things from all angles, or better yet, from no angle at all, but from inside.

3:30 a. m. Susan just called, her voice filled with the giddy rapture of a person who had just helped deliver her best friend’s new baby daughter. She sounded so happy on the phone. How will this birth feel inside her? I hope it leaves laughter in her eyes.

4:30 a. m. Susan finally arrived, and is sitting in my big brown chair, rocking gently. I wonder what circles of thought are spinning in her head. The crease of a frown fell across her brow just now, behind her glasses, as though she might be worried or anxious or angry. She stopped rocking, too. Maybe she’s remembering being in the delivery room.

I want to ask her what’s on her mind, but she looks as if she is enjoying contact with her thoughts.

“I love you,” I said.

I never thought I’d say that again, but you always never think you’ll say that again.

 

– Five Hundred More Times –

Saturday, October 4, 1986

Together under an open window we held each other, so close we could hear each other’s hearts beating. It was a time almost magic in its subtlety.

“Can we do this about five hundred more times?” she asked.

 

–  Not a Kiss –

Monday, October 6, 1986

“I want to kiss you,” I told her. It seemed obvious enough that nature would eventually take its course, since we hold each other close, hold hands, lie on the couch together, etc. All I said was that I wanted to kiss her. End of the world, right?

To witness her reaction one might have thought so. She sat bolt upright on the couch, and without saying a word started to leave. What did I do?

She ended up leaving without saying much more.

Wednesday, October 8, 1986

Okay, it’s irrational fear time. I’m feeling very anxious that she won’t call me tonight. I realize it’s only 12:20 and she always calls after 12:30, but I ‘m feeling it nevertheless. Call me, Susan, call me.

It’s 4:30 now and she just left. We talked about things all evening, and seemed to get some of them ironed out.

Note from Susan…

“I got hurt Monday night because all this time that I’ve been close to you I’ve been working with the assumption that there was no romantic type of situation going on.

“Sometimes it hurts a lot that no one has ever had those feelings about me. And then, sometimes it doesn’t. Those times when it does hurt, the feeling of being last-chosen, never-chosen … those feelings are on top of everything else. This feeling is probably the most acutely painful feeling I have regularly, and one I rarely discuss.

“What I spent the whole day trying, and failing, to understand is why it hurt so much when what happened Monday happened. I’m referring to your puzzling statement about wanting to kiss me. From my somewhat stunned point of view, I didn’t know exactly what you meant. I got scared, confused, baffled, confused, and confused. I think I suffered a minor stroke.

“The problem stemmed from your … well, the lapse of time between the original statement and my eventual grasp of your meaning is what got me. If you’d started out saying … I’m getting confusing. Sorry.

“My problem is just that, my problem. My past is not your fault; you did nothing wrong. The events just added fuel to my present case of “never-chosen,” see? I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to figure out why mental and emotional affection … why does absence of physical desire jab me so badly? I don’t know! And I’m afraid that this will sound like I feel spurned by you. The deal is that I didn’t expect it from you, and for a second, I thought I was suddenly, and with no warning, getting it from you, and I guess it freaked me out.

“The facts: I love you; I don’t pine for you; I’m trying to figure myself out. ”

Regrettably, this note doesn’t really clear up anything.

Saturday, October 11 , 1986

I somehow ended up feeling closer to Susan tonight than ever before, maybe closer than I’ve ever felt to anyone. I kissed her, once or twice, for the first time tonight. Thinking back to it, I wish she were still here so I could kiss her again.

I’m happy. I hope it lasts.

Monday, October 13, 1986

She said that she was better now, that she just freaked out for no reason, that I just got in the way. But everything she wrote about me in her journal is so bitter and ugly and true. When she wrote all that, she really hated me. She wrote that I was “blind” to her feelings, and that things about me sicken her. She wrote that she wasn’t even sure she loved me.

Through the whole thing, I kept saying that I loved her, that I’d stand by her. I didn’t realize she was thinking she was alone, that I had betrayed her, until I read her journal yesterday. I think there’s pain in her I just can’t know. Of course, the same is undoubtedly true of myself.

It feels good to be calmed now, thought, not hurting, back into the rhythm of our love.

 

– Running to Stand Still –

Tuesday, October 21, 1986

I stand still and time passes through me.

It’s been raining since before sunset, a steady stream of medium wet, making the day seem sad. But I was very happy with Susan as she looked at me through her odd lopsided prescription glasses.

“What?” I asked.

“I was thinking I don’t know how to tell you how much I love you,” she answered.

Later, saying good night, I saw our shadows together on the breezeway wall, and I just couldn’t believe it.

 

– “Never Leave My Life” –

Monday, October 27, 1986

Note from Susan…

“Hey, Richard. Thank you.

“Thank you for being corny, and making me feel special, and for being silly and making me laugh, and for being born and ending up in Ottawa in 1986, and thank you for being human, and thank you for holding me and wanting me to hang around. You are kind, gentle, sweet, smart, funny, obnoxious of course, you have a cute face, you’re too ticklish, you have a warm heart and a great laugh, and I love you very, very, very much.

“You know, sitting here writing this while you make one of your tapes over there, I try to imagine what’ll happen in my life when you leave it. I think I’ll have a great emptiness to fill. But I know the things I write down will bring back this incredible love I feel for you; and then again, I won’t need the writings. I’ll never forget you.

“I hope you never leave my life, now that you’re here.

“Love, Susan.”

Thursday, November 13, 1986

Life flows in circles and circles flow in spheres. Here I am, time and time again where I began, moving on and on. This moment passes around me, passes through me.

Susan is sick. I wish we were together. A few minutes ago I picked up her five journals, thinking of her and how much I love her. I feel lost without her.

 

– The Christmas Tree –

Wednesday, November 26, 1986

I bought an artificial tree and about a ton of lights and ornaments, and set it up. I’ve always had a knack for holiday decorating.

When Susan arrived just before midnight, it was ready. I beamed proudly as she looked at it and smiled.

“It’s beautiful,” she told me.

On the stereo we listened to Brian Eno’s The Pearl, a mystical miasma of music all around us. We wrapped up in a blanket on the couch and watched the tree shine all night long. Half-asleep and warm, we held each other as close as any two could, the graceful arc of her raven hair wrapping around her face and tumbling down to my own.

Sunday, December 7, 1986

Tonight Susan was a little distant, and for this she gave no measure of explanation. Despite this I held her close, standing in the parking lot, facing the cold north wind, bitter with the trace of icy rain, thinking how lucky I was to have her. I wonder if she is thinking about me now.

Looking over at my Christmas tree, I am astounded at how good it looks. Best damned tree on the lot.

Sunday, December 14, 1986

I like the way the word “hate” has the sign of the cross in it.

I went down to the Pottawatomie river this afternoon, in the slight mist of grey not-autumn, not-winter weather. I found a spot near a dried-out log jam and built a large bonfire, which I kept going for several hours. The day around me was quite ethereal.

Susan sent roses, which arrived yesterday. “Plant these beautiful things in your heart, Richard, and take care of them. And name them after yourself.”

It was a good, easy day, with no demands.

Wednesday, December 17, 1986

Maybe it was Susan who liked the sound of this date. She likes the word “seventeen.” She’s not here tonight, but she’ll be back, or I’ll be there, tomorrow. Time away from her always reminds me of how much I like time with her.

Thursday, December 25, 1986

Susan called. She sounded like a hundred bucks over the phone. She got a giant inflatable Gumby for Christmas. It’s really too bad she couldn’ t get enough time off that she could come skiing with us. She could ski down the hill with Gumby on her back.

 

– Year in Review –

Wednesday, December 31, 1986

I’d like to write the basic “Year in Review, ” but since I was there and wrote the whole thing down, it seems kind of pointless. Another January is here for our enjoyment. I always feel fresh in January. I don’t have any regrets for 1986. Many of my years I would have changed if could, but in 1986 I did pretty well. Susan was the best thing to happen to me in 1986 . Sometimes I think she was the best thing to happen to me ever.

Monday, January 12, 1987

Respect, attention, affection, patience: the four basic food groups of love. Love is complex and disorganized. It reminds me of sign-in tables at large meetings.

Wednesday, January 14, 1987

I left Susan this evening with the odd, terrible feeling that I was disappointing her. She said I seemed “far away,” but I didn’t feel distant. Her face seemed to want to tell me something. I’ve gotten the same feeling all week. Every night she’s told me I’ve been distant.

Sunday, January 18, 1987

An ice storm swallowed the city today, so instead of driving, I walked to return the movies we had rented. I walked through the frozen grass and over the frozen road. I looked at the frozen trees and bushes, under a sky of fading ancient grey.

In the darkness of a blackout after we ate, Susan and I lay in her bed and talked about the deaths of two children who were close to her. She said it made her want to cry, which she may be doing right now.

 

– The Man from Minnesota –

Wednesday, January 21, 1987

The couch pillow is still warm from where our heads were. Something about that is very romantic.

Today I met a man whose son killed himself when he was sixteen.

Later Susan and I went to a fatality accident, one of my least-liked duties as a news photographer. A 58-year-old man from Minnesota, traveling with his wife, walked across the interstate to help a stranded motorist and was struck by a highway-speed car. His leg was severed. I wonder what the last thing they said might have been. I wonder what his last thought was.

Thursday, February 12, 1987

I just took a walk to my mailbox. The night air is warm and the sky is clear. There is a ring around the moon tonight. Maybe it will rain tomorrow, but it’s so nice tonight. Maybe if it stays this way Susan and I can visit the Bridge. It’s been a long time, huh Bridge? When summer comes, we’ll be there.

 

– Dream Programming –

Thursday, February 19, 1987

I told Susan to meet me tonight in a field of wildflowers, in the middle of an empty plain, with a distant thunderstorm blotting the setting sun into glowing streaks.

The last thing I told her was, “I’ll be waiting.” I hope she remembers to be there and remember the dream.

With her sweet voice an inch away from my ear, “I love you, too,” I was so glad she was there with me.

Wednesday, March 4, 1987

“When you’re dead, you’re dead,” I told her.

“That’s where we disagree,” she explained.

Tonight I was thinking that Susan was less secure than I am regarding her and me. She writes a lot about how temporary we are. I, on the other hand, take a largely more, “It happens when it happens, ” attitude. I don’t know. Maybe she’s playing it smarter. I didn’t see her today, but I thought about her.

Wednesday, March 11, 1987

Susan went home earlier than her usual early tonight, sleepy and a little more than a tittle distracted. As we held each other under the street light, our warm bodies wrapped in my tiger blanket, patrol person Jennifer rolled by in her copmobiIe presumably eyeing our affection. Then I turned my attention back to Susan, and all the rapture I felt as I held her beneath my bengal blanket.

 

– Utterly Misunderstood –

Monday, March 16, 1987

I feel utterly misunderstood tonight , tragically unable to communicate , a helpless verbal prisoner in my mind.

“Sometimes I just don’t know what you want, Richard,” she said. Everyone always says that to me and it always means something different. I have no idea how to answer its implied question.

Thursday, March 19, 1987

“I hope we never fade,” Susan said to me after a moment of protracted, awkward silence. Yeah, I too hope we never fade. She and I are sure to wax and wane, as every pair of close people do. But with a little patience, and a little strength (most of the time those two are the same anyway) the lines of our lives won’t drift past the point of no return.

She and I only spent a few minutes together tonight. I know she’s been feeling troubled lately, but we didn’t have much time to talk. I told her I was proud she was losing weight, which is obviously important to her, and I told her I thought she was strong and beautiful, and that I loved her very much.

“It’s almost as if you read my journal already,” she told me. I hope she understands that I feel these things because they are obvious and true, and more than just compliments.

Tuesday, March 22, 1987

When I was very young, I sang from the back seat of the car as we drove from Flat River back to Saint Louis. I watched as we passed the rock that had been cut to make room for the highway, and the day, always cloudy, set into night. I sang tunes and made up words as I went along. They were always about love and peace . When you’re a kid, they teach you that love and peace run the world. Mom and Dad were always silent. I always felt alone in the back seat, but now I realize that they were probably listening, enjoying me and my song.

 

– Somewhere Else –

Thursday, April 9, 1987

She cried last night. Where was I? I wish l could take the sting of it all away. But I can’t always be there. Heck, I can’t always be here.

I ordered some flowers to be sent to her for her birthday tomorrow. Roses. The card says, “Wed woses. How romantic.”

Tonight she seemed amazingly unhappy about turning 24 – I didn’t know what to say, nor was I sure anything needed to be said, so I just let her plow through whatever was in her. I hope she ends up feeling good about it. She’s a good person. Rare. Maybe one-of-a-kind.

She and I are counting the hours until we fly off on vacation, in the words of her journal, “SOMEWHERE ELSE!”

Our journals are … I love them. No closer embrace, no kiss as sweet as the intricate, euphoric, complex rapture of words on paper.

Sunday, April 12, 1987

Music is poetry with legs.

“What’s the score with you and Susan?” someone asked me today.

“We’re lovers and best friends.”

Wednesday, April 22, 1987

She was distant.

Friday, April 24, 1987

Susan looked sad, acted sad, all day at work. I can’t really understand, and she can’t really explain. Maybe she’s homesick, or maybe she’s feeling lost in what she’s doing. Maybe our relationship isn’t satisfying enough, or maybe she’s clinically depressed. I don’t know. There’s not all that much I can do for her. Tonight she wanted to be left alone, so I left her alone. I feel afraid she might decide to move home to Chicago. She changes the whole landscape of my life. If she left, it would change again. I’d be lonely. I don’t want her to go.

 

– Job Opportunity –

Sunday, April 26, 1987

Then she said, “They need someone in a month.”

I felt my heart jump, but remained silent. A newspaper near Chicago is interested in her.

I taste tears, or maybe they taste me before they devour me.

I can still clearly remember what she wrote in her journal about us last summer: “Richard and I are blooming like a flower.

“It felt so good to hold him tonight; I wanted to crawl inside his skin and ride around all night, inside Richard, safe and warm, always something to do. Inside Richard’s blue eyes, looking out.

“I love him so much.”

Monday, April 27, 1987

I held Susan tight, close to me all night. I feel and fear that these might be our last days together. A part of her wants to run far from this place, this place that has me. But I can’t run with her. If she goes, all I can do is watch.

“I won’t stop loving you just because we live in different places,” she says. Susan, you just don’t get it. You can’t have love by remote control. Letters and visits and phone calls are only echoes of love that separation removes.

I hope she doesn’t get hired, but I get the feeling that if she does, she’ll go. I’m not enough to keep her here.

Tuesday, April 28, 1987

“I am a man whose dreams have all deserted…”

I feel better today, but not really good. Everyone says, “don’t worry until it happens.”

It always hurts to think about being apart from Susan, and this makes it real instead of theoretical. I don’t want her to leave.

My life would change, but I could live if she went away.

“Someday you and I will have to say goodbye.”

Monday, May 4, 1987

Over the past week or so, Susan and I have been watching Shoah, a lengthy documentary about the population in Poland who witnessed the killing of the Jews during the war, and about the killing itself. It seems to touch Susan much more, or in a different way than it does me. She’s been very moody, depressed, agitated, frightened, angry … maybe she needs to feel this way for a while, to make the experience more real.

“I can’t believe that it really happened,” she said as we took a break from one of the most intense parts of the program.

I can. I have a lot of faith in human cruelty. Somehow none of the incredible cruelty we’re seeing comes as any surprise.

Thursday, May 7, 1987

Susan and I had a confusing, though ultimately rewarding, conversation about making love. Actually, it became complicated, but we decided some things. Sort of. It’s actually quite complex. I’d like to write more about it later. It’s important, but unresolved.

 

– Kiss Kiss Kiss –

Saturday, May 16, 1987

Hi, Susan. “Hi, Richard…sweetie…(Kiss kiss kiss).”

How are you?

“I’m sleepy and I’m cheerful and I’m good,” she answered. She’s going to spend the night. A moment ago she began to get frisky and I turned into a puddle. Mmmmmm. Actually, we’re going to camp out here on the living room floor. We have blankets and pillows and we’re ready for “roughing it.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve written in my own lonely and neglected journal that this feels pretty good.”

Thanks, Susan. That was downright inspirational. Now I want to roll up with Susan and spend a nice cozy night on the floor. Sounds nice.

Sunday, May 17, 1987

As Susan was leaving, she said that there were thunderstorms in the forecast, so I went back to sleep and immediately dreamed about thunderstorms in Chicago. She and I had a very physically satisfying night. We had a lot of fun, but I got so hot.

Thursday, June 11, 1987

“…dreaming of mercy…”

Soon Susan and I are going to start visiting the Bridge again.

I miss the stars and the sky. I look at them now and think of Susan. I’ll never look at the sky the same way again. Together we wait for the cool winds of autumn. Patiently we wait. There’s no other choice, really. We’ll watch a few shooting stars, I guess.

 

– Fly Away Home –

Tuesday, June 23, 1987

Susan is on her way to the airport. She’s going to interview for the job in the Chicago area. She stayed up all night last night, and I helped. Staying up like that is easier for me, of course, as I’m going to be asleep in about ten minutes, whereas her plane doesn’t land back here until 10:30 tomorrow night.

I hope she gets what she really wants.

Thursday, June 25, 1987

Susan and I were both totally beat, so we took off our clothes and lay around together, in her bed, just enjoying being bored and naked and in the dark. Sometimes I picture paradise as bored and naked and in the dark.

After talking and then eating, it was time for what seemed like a long, tough goodbye. We held each other tight and wouldn’t let go for so long.

Monday, June 29, 1987

She can’t decide.

“No matter what, I’ll disappoint someone,” she told me.

They’ll disappoint themselves, Susan. And you’ll be disappointed because you’ll believe it when they tell you that you’ve disappointed them.

Oh, STOP IT!

(I say that because I think she probably went home, went through all kinds of agonizing yes-nos, then yelled those words to herself inside her confused, aching head.)

Thursday, July 9, 1987

Mind-numbing, how it’s all the way it is, isn’t it? I feel relieved that Susan turned down the job, but at the same time I’m sad for her. She wanted to be close to her family, but she also wanted to be close to me. No matter what she decided, she was making a sacrifice.

I had a magnificent night with Susan. We laughed and laughed and mmmm she looked so beautiful. She looks best when she’s laughing, I think. She probably feels best that way, too. Susan laughing…I hope I remember that until I die.

 

– Moments –

Wednesday, July 15, 1987

The Ides. R. E. drove from Topeka to visit, and he and Susan and I went to the Bridge together tonight and had a well-tap of a time. On my suggestion we all dug up some moments and told each other about them. Some of the moments were intimately personal, and it was good that we shared them. Susan’s parents divorcing; R. E. saying goodbye to Lisa; my own parting from Tina in eleventh grade…

I love moments.

Saturday, July 18, 1987

Lately she’s been worried, dissatisfied with it all. Sometimes it feels like she’s unhappy with me, but then we hold each other and I remember how much more than me is her life, and how bad feelings come out all over those closest to you. I know I can love and support her, and I know she can do the same. We’ll make it through the rough places.

 

– A Thousand Miles –

Sunday, July 19, 1987

A year has gone tumbling past. On the phone tonight I said over and over, “I love you.” It felt so good to say that to her, and so good to hear her say it to me.

A year. Hmm. Now we’re intertwined.

Someday we’ll be a thousand miles away, and I’ll miss her so much.

Tuesday, July 28, 1987

Susan and I are moving her across town to her own apartment. It’s making her sad and lost, moving out of her sister’s place. She’ll feel better when we’re done and she has her own home.

Several times during this move Susan has alluded to the notion of the two of us becoming permanent in each other’s lives. That’s an interesting, and not unpleasant, idea. But the future is always in motion. Sometimes the concept of marriage seems like an incredibly ordinary thing to do, and something that’s expected of me. I’d have to consider it very carefully.

Wednesday, July 29, 1987

Easily the best thing about today was taking a long whirlpool bath with Susan at her sister’s house. Though Susan was in a disassociated emotional condition, largely from moving, she and I relaxed well and were sluggishly happy all night. I love her in all her moods. Some just take a little more work.

She wonders why we haven’t had many “deep” times lately. Perhaps the dog days just aren’t my deep days. I’m just sort of waiting for a change.

Tuesday, August 4, 1987

I don’t want to write.
I don’t want to itch.
I don’t want to feel useless.
I don’t want to seem like a burden.
I don’t want my eyes to itch.
I don’t want to make anyone hurt.
I don’t want to forget.
I don’t want to lose myself.
I don’t want to throw up.
I don’t want to burn up.
I don’t want to grow up.
I don’t want to break a leg.
I don’t want arthritis.
I don’t want to bite my tongue.
I don’t want to shake.
I don’t want to be forgotten.
I don’t want to ache.
I don’t want disease.
I don’t want to be hungry.
I don’t want to be mentally ill.
I don’t want to be in an asylum.
I don’t want to cough.
I don’t want to be an asshole.
I don’t want to seem insensitive.
I don’t want to lose touch.
I don’t want to lose face.
And I don’t want to lose you.

Sunday, August 23, 1987

Somewhere there’s a 16-year-old right now who’s writing in his journal about how he dreads going back to school in six days. Or was I the only one?

I’m tired and so lonely tonight. I want to reach for the phone and call for help, but there’s no one who’s willing to be uncomplicated with me. I just want to smile for a while. I’m not disappointed by or forsaken by Susan, but she has something on her mind that won’t leave, something she says is due to me in her life. Nothing really changed between us, but I end up being not enough, or too much.

 

– Other Lovers –

Monday, August 24, 1987

A complicated, emotional day has drifted into a resolved, relieved night. After Susan and I had talked once, over dinner, and I was on assignment, I felt like driving on and never corning back. But I knew I wouldn’t; making a big mess bigger doesn’t help anything.

“I want you to promise you won’t have any other lovers,” she told me. In a way it was flattering that she thought I would be able to get other lovers, and in a way it was insulting that she thought I would have other lovers. Somehow that all got incredibly complicated.

The end result was not really a promise, but more of a clarification. I told her that I understood that she could never accept my having another lover.

Tuesday, August 25, 1987

Note from Susan…

“I hope that his sweet head sleeps well tonight. If I could leave my body, I’d blow into his warm room as a soothing caress of a breeze, which would smooth the creases from his forehead and unknot the knots in his back. And I would brush his fingertips so he would know that something was with him; and in his sleep, maybe he would believe it, and at least the shackles of sleep would keep him from moving away. For Richard, I love you so.”

 

– Some Way to Win –

Sunday, August 30, 1987

Life isn’t a game. If it was, there would be some way to win.

After seeing Melissa in Saint Louis, I enjoyed the drive home … the road, the speed, the motion, the yellow line…

Arriving at Susan’s and not finding her there, I left her a note saying I loved her, and I went home. I called Robert, who was in town looking for me. I got a bite to eat, and Susan called. Come on over, she said. It was nice to hear her voice. I missed her all weekend. I hoped that now that I’m back from Saint Louis and my visit to Melissa, her mind would be at ease.

We had fun, right at first. I gave her the gifts I bought her in Saint Louis … the big wall watch, the wristwatch, a ridiculous bowtie, an aloe plant from my grandmother, and three kinds of preserves.

Before long, though, it was clear that something was bothering her. I thought, as I asked and asked, that she was worried that I had been unfaithful to her with Melissa, which I had not. I kept prodding and prodding until finally it came flooding out. She saw us as fundamentally different. She said she was tired of hurting. She was giving up on us. She told me she didn’t want to be lovers any more. She’d had enough.

Why don’t I let her give up on us? Maybe I will, I don’t know. But that feels like such an amazing step backward. I want to be lovers. I told her to wait and we’ll work on it. Maybe it’ll give us a chance to ruminate, or maybe I’m just stalling. I told her that we can work it out, that we can make anything work.

Monday, August 31, 1987

From Susan’s Journal…

“Richard, trying to make a list is difficult. What causes the problem is an attitude I perceive, more than actions. I’ll drop my defenses and tell you what hurts.

“Yes, knowing that you still have feelings for Melissa in a romantic way, it hurts. You choose to keep that fantasy private now, but before we were lovers, you told me all about her. I can’t conveniently forget it. I know it, and it’s your emotion and your desire. Asking you to change would be wrong, and impossible. So this is something that will have to stand.

“It bothers me because I wish I filled the need that keeps you wanting her in your life. I love you very much, and I have opened my heart to you; you know my strong and weak spots. One of my weak spots is my physical self image. But between your love, working out, and dieting, that’s improving.

“I love and trust you enough that you are my lover; I’ve never had a real, physical lover before, because it’s a great commitment for me; it’s a leap of faith, a leap to you.

“I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Still, these differences make me wonder; your attitude has seemed so much more casual in regard to this that I’ve wondered how much of it is vital to me and minor to you. So I wondered if being lovers on such uneven ground was good for us. My pain causes you pain.

“But the bottom line is our friendship. If sexual intimacy is going to cause constant pain and eventual resentment, how can I let it go on? If that’s the price of an orgasm with you, the price is just too high. Your friendship means more.”

Wednesday, September 2, 1987

She asked me, “What is your deepest, darkest fear.”

Tough question. Good question. I was just quiet for a while. Deepest, darkest fear. I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it for a while. I must have one. Deepest, darkest, coldest, secret fear. I’ll get back to you.

Tuesday, September 15, 1987

Susan and I hated the world together tonight. It didn’t really provide much comfort. Hate is hate. The only real comfort comes from loving each other. In the end we hugged and kissed and it was okay.

The sky is the limit to my limitless dreams.

“Can you believe it’s already September?” she asked tonight. I just shrugged and picked an enormous mushroom that was growing in the grass.

 

– The Rabbit Dies –

Tuesday, September 22, 1987

Susan bought me a stuffed bear and hid it in the darkroom under a towel. In its arms she put a sign that said, “hug me.”

To usher in the first night of autumn, Susan and I went to the Bridge and breathed clouds of steam into the night. The dark air held September in its pinpoint stars. We were cold there, but I think that with a blanket and each other, we can have wonderful times watching the night sky turn to snow.

A telling event happened on our way back from the Bridge. As we drove south on Acme road, we spotted a jackrabbit, but it wasn’t running away from us. We stopped and got out of the car to find it had been seriously injured, its legs crushed, probably by another car.

“I can’t believe someone would hurt it and then just leave. Is there anything we can do for it? It’s getting so cold out here.” She was almost in tears.

“We could kill it,” I added.

“How?” she asked, looking at me like I was some inhuman monster.

“Run over it with your car. It’ll be quick and painless.”

She relaxed a little. “I guess you’re right. It just seems so cruel to kill it without trying to help it.”

Finally she and I get back in the car, and after taking a deep breath, she drove quickly forward and finished it off. On the way to the Rainbow, she had a great deal of difficulty calming down.

“Why don’t you eat something. It might help you relax.”

She glanced at the menu, then looked at our waitress.

“It’s been a hard night,” Susan told her, “so I’ll have the veal Parmesan.”

Thursday, October 1, 1987

It’s October, yes, and I feel a little lonely because Susan isn’t around.

I called her twice tonight to tell her how much I love her. She’ll be at work tomorrow. I’ll smile when I see her.

Monday, October 5, 1987

Susan and I were back at the Bridge tonight. We laid on the hood of her car, just like always, this time under a ragged blanket, staring at the moon. It was a fine and gentle time. I hope we keep doing it.

Sometimes I feel like a bottle of wine. I sit in the cold and dark, waiting in tender isolation, free to look out at nothing. Then one day, someone tastes my soul, and it’s bitter, sweet, and dry.

I can hardly believe it’s already now. Time flies, far above, silently, casting no shadow. One day it’s gone.

Friday, October 16, 1987

Tonight as we were parting, I didn’t want to let Susan go, so I just kept talking. It was so nice to have her there under the clearing sky, hearing her voice and watching her watching me. So I just kept her there for a while. I’m certain she didn’t mind.

 

– A Magic Night –

Saturday, October 24, 1987

Susan and I had dinner and a little wine, and now we’re going to have a magic night, assuming Susan wants to have a magic night.

“Define ‘magic night.'”

“We dash our glasses in the fireplace,” I explained, “and waves are crashing on the shore.”

“Is the fireplace on the shore? The waves are going to put out the fire. That’s not very good planning, Rich.”

Magic night.

Saturday, November 14, 1987

I spent the night with Susan last night. It was nice, really nice, but I don’t get enough good sleep with her. I’m always waking up, smiling, touching her. As a result, I’m tired.

She’s on the phone with me now. “What are you writing about?”

“You,” I answered.

“Will you still love me when you get back from visiting your friends in the Kansas City tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes, of course I will.”

Sometimes she’s a stranded calf.

Friday, November 20, 1987

Susan and I are sitting together on the her blue love seat, listening to Claire de Lune. Soon we’re going to bed, to sleep together for a while. I can feel her head on my shoulder as she listens with her eyes closed, and her heart open to the music.

“Susan,” I said, then waited for a long time. I smiled weakly at her. She knew I didn’t want anything but a moment of her attention.

“Nothing,” I added, and she smiled.

 

– Invading My Journal –

Friday, November 27, 1987

Note from Susan in My Journal…

“You’re sleeping in my bed now, all naked and soft and warm and good-smelling. You just called me in to remind me to say goodbye, but I could never forget.

“I’m privately invading your journal to tell you, Richard, how sweet it always is to sleep with you. To feel your hands and arms and legs slowly creep around me, become entangled with me; to feel loved, surrounded by your love.

“I just wanted to record these feelings in a place you’ll never lose them. I love you, and I love being with you. I’ll treasure this time, not knowing how much we’ll have. I’ll treasure you.”

Saturday, November 28, 1987

I just got Susan’s message in my journal yesterday and it really made me smile. Now she sits next to me, watching her favorite music videos and falling asleep on my arm. I really enjoy the nights I spend here in her apartment. Tonight we set up the Christmas tree at my house. We looked at it and listened to music for a while, then ate and came over here to spend the night. It’s very cold out tonight, and she’s going to be very warm.

Saturday, December 12, 1987

Susan is feeling very far away from me. I wish she’d come back. You know, I feel so good and happy with her. Things are easy and fun and it all feels good. That’s why I don’t understand when suddenly things aren’t so good between us. Susan, you make me want to cry.

I’m in love. It feels really wonderful to be in love still, after a year and a half. A year and a half ago, I had no idea I’d be here, and I have no idea where I’ll be in a year and a half.

 

– Walls and Walls and Walls –

Wednesday, December 23, 1987

Letter from Susan…

“Richard,

“I was lying in bed, doing my yearly analysis, and your name and your face kept coming up over and over. So let me tell you now, on the eve of Christmas Eve, what you’ve done for me in the 18 months since we started ‘killing time,’ and in the eight or so months since we became lovers…

“There are walls and walls and walls in me. Many of those I unknowingly erect around my heart to protect me from the pain of total love. Since you first spent the night with me in my brother’s bed in Chicago – awkward as we were – you’ve been pounding on my walls: insistent, patient, impatient, lonely, angry, but always loving.

“It was only the knowledge that you waited outside my walls with open arms that gave me a reason to keep chiseling until I reached you. I was lonely too: angry, patient, impatient. And I wanted so much to love you.

“There are so many things in you that I love. It seems that every day you tell a ridiculous joke that I hadn’t heard; reveal more knowledge that I didn’t know you had; express your love in another gentle, passionate way; or wear that white sweater…

“A new year is coming, and I can look forward to brighter days – somehow brightened by the decreasing fog of my fears and reflex inhibitions. Days filled with brilliant light of a stronger love than I’ve ever experienced – an intimate love that gets deeper, wider, stronger, taller every single day. I have us to look forward to in January, on Christmas Eve, tomorrow, and forever in my heart.

“Merry Christmas, Sweetness. I love you.

“-Susan.”

Thursday, December 31, 1987

All night long I’ve felt a little strange, sort of lost between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Here it is, though, New Year’s Eve, and Susan and I kissed and drank a toast. It was very romantic. We had pizza and wine, and apple pie a la’ mode. It was a nice evening, quiet and safe, and in love.

“I love him.”

1987 was full of Susan’s love. ’88 needs improvement over ’87, but Susan’s love was right on the money.

 

– Falling in Love with Ourselves –

Monday, January 4, 1988

It occurs to me on this very cold, cloudy night somewhere in the middle of my life that recently I haven’t been writing nearly enough about Susan. Maybe I feel as though there’s nothing remaining to say about her, as she’s firmly entrenched in my side as my significant other, living with me most of the time. We grow, though, together every day, and we are very happy together, loving each other, touching each other’s lives in ways neither of us has known before.

It’s sweet. I look in her eyes and see love, admiration, affection, sympathy, support … everything I need from her. Without her my life would be profoundly different now, and I don’t think it would be as good.

Susan says that we really just fall in love with ourselves, loving the things in others that reflect the things in ourselves we already love. I disagree. I think we fall in love with the way we blend with each other.

Tuesday, January 19, 1988

Days go by quickly, unique and so strange. Some are full of laughter and some are laced with pain. Most are a mix of love and hate, boredom and freedom, pain and decision.

Today I felt mostly loved and in love. Susan and I are feeling closer and more loving than ever before, touching and holding more, laughing and saying nice things more than ever. It’s like a miracle, a blessing. I can’t explain. Our eyes meet, our souls touch…

I wonder if she’s thinking or dreaming about me now.

Friday, January 22, 1988

Susan and I are having a fine evening together.

We made a videotape letter to a friend of hers. We toured Susan’s apartment, then went to the police station and filmed, then to the office where we both work. Later we came home and made a tape of both of us for my mom and dad.

These days we’re sharing each other better than ever before.

Thursday, January 28, 1988

Susan and I just finished watching Shoah again. As long and lackluster as the film was, we were interested all the way through. I think Susan and I must enjoy being patient, careful observers of history. There aren’t all that many people I know who are willing to sit through nine hours of Polish-French-English subtitled dialog about what it was like to watch Germans gas and burn Jews.

I’m tired now, but at least my insides are full of good food, my bed is warm and dry, my girlfriend loves me very much, and no one is trying to kill me.

 

– The Shallow Grave –

Friday, January 29, 1988

At about 8:45 tonight, we heard a call on Susan’s police scanner from the Sheriff’s Office. They found the remains of a body buried in a shallow grave northwest of town.

We arrived at the scene in a little over twenty minutes. It was a small abandoned farmhouse that stood at the top of a hill. With no electric power, there were no lights. There was no moon, either. Above us was a murky black and grey nothingness. Even the lights on the police cars were inexplicably off. Only the dim illumination of our flashlights allowed us to see at all.

Susan talked to the officers for a few moments, then returned to me at the car. We waited. The night should have been colder, but somehow held a warmth in its hands. A gusty south wind was eager to hold us.

It would be a while before they let us actually do our jobs, so our attention turned to each other. Holding hands, facing each other, her almost-black hair tossed on her shoulders by that warm-cool wind, her trusting green eyes looking at me in the near total darkness… she seemed to me to be the most beautiful, most perfect woman I’d ever known.

“I love you,” I whispered, and the sound of my voice carried to her like an echo on the wind.

“I love you, too.”

 

– Snow on Our Shoulders –

Thursday, February 4, 1988

We walked down the stairs to her parking lot in silence, surrounded by the sweet quiet of muted traffic in the softly falling snow. At my car, I turned and leaned on it, and she quite naturally wrapped her arms around me and leaned on me.

She was the perfect picture, her dark hair tumbling over her knit white scarf. I held her very close and watched her eyes as she told me things about her day. As she talked, snow fell on her glasses and melted, fell on the shoulders of her navy pea coat, fell on my hair and my suede jacket.

We both just kept on talking as the snow quietly fell on and around us. An hour in the cold night passed, and we both realized that this wonderful moment was ending.

She leaned forward and kissed me gently. It wasn’t passionate, so much as it was so very loving. I kissed her back, and from our breath rose a wispy pall of steam. In a moment we separated, and she looked at me.

“Do you know where I am?” she asked.

“Where?” I answered.

She lifted her finger gently to my lips and touched them.

“I’m right there.”

Friday, February 19, 1988

“‘Healthy’ is someone else’s definition of what I should be.”

Susan is writing in her journal on my knee, and even though I’m heavily medicated for a severe case of sniffles, she still looks tremendously cute.

“What do you think of all my poetry?” I asked her. “What does it all mean to you?”

“I think you’re trying to figure out something. You don’t understand why things have to be the way they are.”

Tonight, like most nights for a while now, ended as I drove back home to my own apartment, and as I turned the corner to head east, I looked back over to my left and saw her leaning way over the edge of her balcony, waving. I honked the horn, and then as quickly as I saw, she was out of sight. She and I do this every night.

Sunday, February 21, 1988

I watched Reds all night at Susan’s place, then took her fish over to my place so I can feed it while she’s in Chicago for the week. I miss her already. When she left this morning (when I was very little, I thought that was just one word … “thesmorning”), I was sleepy in her bed, but I think she understood that I was going to miss her.

She was crying when she called me tonight. She had no idea why. She’s been crying a lot lately, and she doesn’t understand it.

 

– An Envelope with Nothing In It –

Thursday, March 10, 1988

“Are you asleep,” I asked on the phone a little while ago.

“Mmm hmmm,” came the answer.

“I just wanted you to know,” I whispered, “that I love you and I hope you dream about me.”

I wonder if I … no. I wonder if Susan is dreaming about me now. Is she happy? Is she in love? Am I what she wants?

Tuesday, March 15, 1988

Strangely I called Melissa today because she sent me an envelope with nothing in it. We talked for a long time about how she doesn’t want to work or have a career, but wants a rich husband and lots of time to herself.

Susan felt bad, as she always does whenever she hears the name Melissa. Insecure, jealous, threatened, etc. She can’t understand that her presence in my life drives out the desire for women like Melissa, and that I find Melissa kind of immature and shallow.

I’m not ready to say goodbye to Susan. I want to stay with her some more. I don’t want us to end.

Sunday, April 3, 1988

The long, lonesome road was broken by Susan’s loving embrace. The moon rising along the endless, empty highway tonight reminded me of the summer of 1986, meeting Susan, watching the moon rise from The Bridge with her. Those weren’t easy or even especially happy days, but they were special. They changed my life.

Susan, anticipating lots of pounding on her roof and walls from construction has gone to sleep in my bed. I don’t know if there will be room for us both, but we’ll try.

I also sensed a sort of desperate need to be with me tonight. Recently she’s desperate and clingy a lot of the time. I hope she can learn to be happy with herself. She and I have hit some potholes in the road of our relationship.

If you don’t understand freedom, you don’t need it.

 

– The Inadequacy of Blueberry Pie –

Sunday, April 10, 1988

For her birthday I brought her a blueberry pie with five candles, one for every five years. At first she was kind of angry, presumably because I didn’t bring her diamonds and gold. Later though, it became apparent that she was feeling old, in the sense that she had some unfulfilled expectation about who and where she would be by now.

Her heart is thirsty.

Friday, April 15, 1988

Here are some of the things we said tonight …

“Janitor Nancy!”
“Sleezoid.”
“The muscles in my chest are so hard you probably got a concussion.”
“How many times did I shove you off of it?”
“It’s just like playing a French horn, only much softer.”
“A score in time saves lives.”
“It’s a little phrase. It goes together.”
“Your hand sure is curved around.”
“Don’t put your pen in my ear! Can’t you keep your writing utensils out of other peoples’ orifices?”
“The dreaded noselock!”
“Yes it is. I’ve been taking hormones.”
“Keep your pen out of my mouth now!”
“What next, ektoplasm?”
“Right the way you’re doing it is supreme ticklishness.”
“You give me a funny feeling in my groinal area.”

Monday, April 18, 1988

Susan says that in some ways, there’s no point in being my lover. I wonder, then, for what is our love, or any love? Is it only useful if it leads to some greater reward, like childbearing? I find love to be its own reward, satisfyingly so. I find that having love is enough, and that its other rewards are illusory, and hungering for them is only an effort to avoid dealing with ourselves and our inadequacies.

I have love in my life simply because I like it.

 

– Layoffs –

Tuesday, April 19, 1988

They told me today that a bunch of us are being laid off from work on May 4. That in itself didn’t upset me too much. I’m not that attached to the job. My concern is that the day she and I never hoped would come may be close at hand.

Maybe Susan and I could be together for a lifetime. Something to think about, isn’t it?

Saturday, April 23, 1988

I feel sad now, but not because I had a really good time with my friends today. Anna, David, Michael, Ben, Kevan and I went to the Glacier Rocks and climbed our hearts out, then ate at Big Bubba’s, then came home and played Risk until midnight.

No, it was because when I called Susan, she said she had a cold and that I shouldn’t come over. Now, though, I think I should have, just because lovers ignore each other’s illnesses and such and make the necessary sacrifices. Mostly, though, I wanted to be with her. I’ll be moving in with her soon (although we spend so many nights together now it won’t be a big transition), and I hope it draws us in closer than ever. Susan’s been far away the last few days, having a tough time sorting through what lies ahead.

 

– The Cat and the Cardinals –

Thursday, May 5, 1988

Susan’s mom has decided that Fred the Cat is too much trouble. His aging cat body is no longer keeping itself clean in typical cat fashion, and Fred’s continual incontinence is driving the family up the wall.

“Come and get your cat or we’ll have to destroy it,” is the word from her mom.

As we drove today and the hours started to roll by, we talked about everything and nothing, a wonderfully serpentine conversation that led us from past to future, near and far.

For an hour or more we played name-that-tune with the radio. We set it to scan, so it changed the music every three seconds automatically, leaving both of us just enough time to try to come up with the artist and song title before it scanned again.

The game started and ended in uproarious laughter from both of us. When there had been a few minutes of road-noise silence, she smiled at me and took my hand.

“Put on the ‘Driving Music,’ ” she told me. I knew which music she meant. It was a Brian Eno’s Old Land, and it seemed to fit our day together perfectly. We listened to it into the night, very pleased to be with each other, and then we were here in Illinois.

Friday, May 6, 1988

Up at the crack of noon, we packed ourselves and Fred the Cat into the Escort and headed west. An hour out of Chicago, she sighed.

“What is it, honey?” I asked.

“Mmm. Richard, remember what we talked about last night, about what we want?”

“Yea,” I answered, “I remember you said you didn’t know what you wanted from your life.”

“It’s just that every time I come home to Illinois, I miss my family that much more. I want to be with them.”

“I know,” I told her, remembering when we departed Chicago on United Airlines last year. She cried and cried. I also remembered when she was offered that job at the newspaper near Chicago last year, and after all that agonizing decided to stay with me.

“It’s ironic,” I continued, “that you want to be with your family so much, when just last week you told me that … ”

“Yea, that all we really have is ourselves.”

In Saint Louis, we saw that the Cardinals were playing, so we tuned to the game on the radio. Dash board light. The chatter of the game. The dark night.

Tuesday, May 10, 1988

Fred the Cat seems at home with us now. He has fun with us, he’s comfortable with us, he likes us. I say “us.” That’s because I’m in the process of moving in, and we are more of an “us” now than ever before. We’re inseparable, Susan and I. I’m in her bed now, watching her flip pages and read.

Wednesday, May 11, 1988

Since I have little to do in the day, I’m writing about the firsts … the first time Susan and I slept together, the first time we held each other, the first time we went to The Bridge, the first time we said hello. I miss her now. I’m in her home, waiting for her to come home, missing her, hoping our time together isn’t disappearing before our eyes.

“Do we love to live together?” I asked tonight.

“Yea, I think so,” she answered.

 

– Ham and Cheese Loaf –

Sunday, May 15, 1988

Note from Susan…

“Richard, remember the cherries and the ham and cheese loaf in the drawer, and please pull the knob on the dishwasher before you leave. And remember all day that my love surrounds you with bright, white, healing light.”

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be surrounded with bright, white, healing light.

 

– How Not to Open Biscuits –

Sunday, May 22, 1988

Susan offered to make biscuits for brunch, so while she began that, I stepped into the shower.

Just as I was fully soaped, I heard, “Honey?”

I opened the shower curtain to see her holding her left hand above her head, a trail of bright blood steaming down her arm.

“What happened?” I asked, alarmed.

“I opened the biscuits with a butcher knife.”

So I took her to the clinic for stitches, then made the ill-fated biscuits, and finally took her to see a minor-league baseball game. It was all excellent fun, except for her accident, and one time at the game when she observed me glancing at another woman. Her insecurities are intense sometimes.

Monday, May 23, 1988

“Go to sleep, honey. I’ll be along in a moment,” I told her.

She looks sweet now, trying to sleep.

“I wish I could open my heart to you,” she said.

Now she’s talking about things, yawning sometimes, looking at me, then becoming quiet and trying to sleep again. I touch her hair and she smiles gently and scratches her nose.

Now almost asleep, she’s talking and laughing and mumbling things that don’t make sense, like, “did you wash your illegal alien today?”

 

– “I Should Do Something Else” –

Sunday, May 29, 1988

I know I need to be able to be alone.

Susan and I had a day that was really good, then really tough. She’s sitting on the love seat quietly thinking about the things we said today. Another baseball game, this time with fireworks, was great. Susan was at my side in the midst of the crowd, the sun was down behind the seats in left field, the home team was winning, and we were sharing a hot dog.

But tough times came to us as we got home. A hurtful discussion from last night bled into tonight, and we struggled with it for a while. Love and praise are no match for her insecurities.

“I just don’t think we want the same things,” she told me at one point last night, “so maybe you should go to the ball game tomorrow and I should do something else.”

Now, though, it seems like we’re settled. It’s late, and we’ll be sleeping together.

Friday, June 3, 1988

The editor of a newspaper from Illinois called today to say he was very interested in the portfolio I sent. We set up an interview for Tuesday at two. This news is both exciting and saddening to both of us. An interview isn’t a job, and a job isn’t the end of us, since it’s geographically close to her family. You’d think from the expression on her face, though, that she’d just come back from a funeral. Or a marriage. Ha, ha.

Tonight I just can’t make her smile. I asked her to label some cassettes for me and she became downright hostile.

 

– Five Different Things –

Monday, June 6, 1988

Here I am in Lombard, Illinois, and while I know it’s where I need to be professionally, my heart is begging me back to Ottawa. The closer I got to Chicago, the more I wanted to turn around and come home to her apartment, with Fred the Cat and balloons on the ceiling, and Susan.

As she cried in the parking lot, I told her, “I’ll be back soon.” I don’t want to live up here without her. I don’t want to live anywhere without her. She says she’s going to find a job up here and join me. There are a lot of questions in our lives now. We don’t really know what to do. I feel young and inexperienced.

Monday, June 13, 1988

A kind of subtle tension has settled on the Richard-Susan household, as tomorrow is when the editor is supposed to call from Illinois to offer me the job. We’re both hoping that he’ll call, and we’re both hoping he won’t. She’s in the bedroom now, in the dark, sulking, mortified at what the future might hold. I can’t say I blame her.

Sunday, June 19, 1988

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know, honey,” she whispered, “I just feel like crying out to you about five different things.”

A little while passed, then the cat made some noise in the living room. I thought that things that are gone are gone.

“Are you asleep?” I asked.

We talked, and minutes passed. I thought of the week waiting to hear from Illinois. No call, no job. Just an unemployment check.

She is lying next to me, sighing. She feels very sick, and probably won’t go to work tomorrow. She stares at the wall,. Her gaze doesn’t move, gathers no information. She’s lost in a pool of thought, about me, about us, about the future.

 

– “We’ll Make It, Honey” –

Monday, June 20, 1988

Note from Susan…

“Dear, darling Richard,

“I’m lucky to be the lover of a tender-hearted soul like you. I know a lot of people, and you are one of the gentlest, kindest, sweetest people I know – I love you so much. And that’s why I can’t seem to stop going haywire about your temporary absence. Do you know what it’s like to leave your arms, your eyes, your hands behind and be expected to go on about your daily mundane business? Yes, I believe you do. Well, you’re moving away from me, my love, and however temporary, it won’t be easy.

“We’re strong and we try to be there for each other. Sometimes we fail, but we admit it and say we’re sorry and mean it. That’s why I know that you and I will still be in love when the world has tired of tearing at our hearts.

“I am sorry that I’m hurting you. Please don’t hide from my sadness. Let me help you. Let me hold you up like you’ve done for me so many times. I want to be your lover, a good one. But more than that, I want to be the best friend you’ll ever have. Because that’s how much I love you.

“We will make it, honey. And no matter how far apart we are, I will always carry your heart in my heart, cradling it, embracing it, letting no harm come to it.”

Friday, June 24, 1988

It seemed like it was going to be such a good day, when suddenly it fell through. I got my apartment in Chicago, and Robert and I had a pretty good time. Then the truck overheated and Robert and I got into a serious disagreement. Then calling Susan the spit really hit the fan. Her doctor says she has mono and will probably need as much as six weeks of bed rest. Life is certainly taking a gigantic wet dump on us all of the sudden. No matter what I said on the phone to her tonight she just cried and cried.

She seems saddened by my moving away as though she were never corning with me.

 

– Long Distance –

Sunday, July 3, 1988

She stood wrapped in nothing but a blanket, looking at me, tears pouring down her face. She held me for a long time, staining my shirt sleeve with tears.

“It’s okay, Honey. We’ll be together again soon, I promise,” I told her. She just cried. I kissed her a final time, then walked out the door. As I drove away, I saw a last glimpse of her face through the window as she waved a sad goodbye. I looked away.

Now suddenly my home is far, far away, in this strange town and this strange land. How long will it be before she can join me? Will she? Without her, I guess I’d go back home. Echoes of my love for her ring through this empty apartment as I sit here, starkly alone.

“Honey?” I asked her from the pay-phone tonight, “will you come to live with me in Chicago?” I guess I just needed to hear her reassure me. I’ve never felt this kind of need before.

“Yes,” she answered.

What am I doing here?

Wednesday, July 6, 1988

I talked to my friend Ayn for about 45 minutes. She was encouraging, but had no idea whether or not I was making a mistake. In 1986 she moved up here too, to be with her boyfriend, but only stayed three days and moved back. She said they just weren’t meant to be.

Susan got a call from another paper, one just sixteen miles from my front door. They wanted to see her work. It would be really great … paradise … for her to work and live right here.

I lie in bed, exhausted and unhappy, ready to be rudely awakened in six and a half short hours to go back to work.

Sunday, July 17, 1988

Have I ever been this alone in my life? When I was fifteen? Yesterday? Ever? I’m feeling acute dread about facing the week alone, no friends, no rewards, no company, no love…

Letter from Susan…

“Richard,

“It started out as a note, and ended up as one of the few ‘poems’ I’ve written. It’s for you. Hey honey, we’ll be us again soon. I love your guts completely.

“I miss you at bedtime
whenever I go away and come back
I miss me home to return to
I miss you at lunchtime
I miss you when the sun beats me to bed
I miss you in Movieland
And all these moments
break up the long, long hours
during which I miss you most of…
all.”

Monday, July 25, 1988

I wonder if I’m too passionately in love with the good life that I had back home with all my friends and with Susan. Oddly, now mostly what I hear from home is that I should make new friends. I don’t want to be unhappy (by definition), but I do feel very sad when I think of them. I can remember times in my life of great elation, and other times, like now, of great loneliness. If I’d gotten this job in Illinois and moved here in 1985, before I met Susan, it would have been much easier. But now it’s now, and I have to deal with the way I feel today.

I talked to Susan on the phone a lot today. She feels like she’s being buried alive. I wish I could talk to her face to face, to let her know that we’re still us. She’s so uncertain about the future. She doesn’t even know for sure that I’m the one for her future, or if instead she should just simply be alone.

I’m alone now, and feeling it rather acutely. I might have to be alone from now on. I think sometimes that being alone is the way to which it must always return.

 

– I Sit in the Dark –

Friday, July 29, 1988

I realize with my heart crushed to the ground how incredibly alone I am. Susan, once my best friend and lover, is tonight an agonized and horrible stranger. She no longer wants to be my lover.

My head is spinning, reeling, aching. I find myself a thousand miles from home, and my whole reason for being here, Susan, is evaporating before my eyes. She was my home.

I sit in the dark now, thunder dying in the distance, thinking and wishing my life had a meaning and a place and something to make me smile.

Wednesday, August 3, 1988

For a moment I was one step beyond desperate to get back to that wonderful, confused, falling in-love summer of 1986, to be by her side, hurting to even touch her hand, but too scared to try.

Then as I looked around on this hot Illinois evening, I found myself thousands of miles from that irreplaceable beauty. We lay on the hood of her car and stared at the stars, talking and talking, telling each other our whole lives. Our lonely hearts reached out for the rare treat of a friend, and found a lover.

It hurts too much to live, to breathe, to believe.

Out of my control and destroying my hopes and dreams, she’s gone. No mutual decision, no real discussion. It’s just over.

Dreams make promises they can’t keep.

 

– The Ground Will Always Hold Me Up –

Monday, August 15, 1988

I just got off the phone with Ayn. “Hey,” she said in the end, “this will all be over soon.”

I know she’s right. Still, now I must feel this way. Before that I called Susan, and told her I wanted to talk seriously about another chance.

“My heart is open to you, Richard, but not to that.”

I’m never comfortable any more. My heart races, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I pace, I’m too hot, I’m too cold. All I allow myself to think about is all the wasted chances, all the selfish, lazy excuses, all the blindness and insensitivity.  I stare at the ground, never smile…

But what’s done is done, and while facing that is painful, I will. Actually, I don’t think I’ll call Susan again. That sort of conversation only results in abject humiliation. Now I am alone, and in some strange, familiar way, I am starting to remember what it was like to be alone. The ground always holds me up when nothing else will.

Wednesday, September 7, 1988

Days go by and nothing much changes.

Here’s the thought that gave me strength today: I made it through junior high. I can make it through anything.

Now I’m back in my lonely bed. Hmmm. The word “lonely.” I think about it and use it a lot. Ever since I was 15, it seems like that word and I have been close. And still, after all this time, it has just as much punch, as much ice and hurt, as much black and grey, as always. What a word.

“I think about the stupidest thing I would do,” I told Ayn, “would be to pack up all my stuff and come home.”

I feel like Susan was never really in love with me, or that she is really unfeeling and uncaring. Was I really that wrong about her? She says she cares about me and still loves me, but her actions (speaking louder than words) seem to say that my friendship isn’t anything special, that she is moving away from me. Is she really as selfish as my admittedly biased perspective tells me?

Isn’t everyone? She’s selfish because she comes from a culture of selfish people. Does anyone love, or do we just take what we want? She couldn’t get what she wanted from me, so I wasn’t of any use to her any more?? Man, listen to me. Every evil, game-playing voice in my head is speaking tonight.

Sunday, September 18, 1988

A girl named Brenda and I spent some of the evening together, sharing our complaints about life. We sat by a pond in a suburban Chicago park in the cool autumn wind after it stopped raining. I told her about myself. It was nice at the end of the night to be held for once in a long time. It was nice to feel wanted.

 

– Message in the Bottle –

Monday, September 19, 1988

One of Susan’s favorite things to do for me was leave notes. Most of the time, they were funny, playful thoughts intended to amuse me. And sometimes they were genuine love notes.

“I’ll carry you with me everywhere, Honey. I love you, I love you, I love you!!!”

“I’ll be thinking about you wherever I am.”

“You look so cute when you just wake up.”

“These vitamins are waiting to be absorbed by your handsomeness.”

She was also fond of making up new and increasingly absurd nicknames for me.

“Care for yourself while I’m gone, my little lemon sugar-heart-cow-ice-fork.”

That particular pet name originated during a game of charades while waiting for our dinner to arrive in Mama Louise restaurant the night in snowed last January. I had run out of clue ideas and had started picking up various items on the table, mooing like a cow, etc. She thought it was hilarious, and I wore that nickname for a while.

She also called me her Darling Honey Lamb, her Little Blueberry Muffin Cup, Honey Sweetness ‘Ness, Sweetness Face, Smoky Links, Sweetheart Face, and Puddin’ Pie.

Sometimes she’d draw pictograms, the usual translation to which was, “I love you.”

“I wanted to write you a note, but I don’t know what to say,” she explained once.

“How about, ‘Dear Richard: I love you. Susan.'”

A moment later she handed me a piece of pink note paper with the words, “Richard, I love you. Susan,” written on it.

“No matter what, I will never desert you.”

I tell you that to tell you this.

I got up and got in the shower, turning the water on almost as hot as it would get on this cold, dark morning. As steam filled this tiny apartment, I thought of all the times she and I sat in her bathroom, steaming away our head colds and hay fever.

I dressed slowly, almost painfully, like an arthritic old man, and picked up my grey jacket, for the first time this season. I pulled it on, then reached into the pocket for my gloves. Inside, on top of the right glove, I felt a small piece of paper. I pulled it out and read:

“It’s cold outside, but my love will keep you warm.”

Sunday, September 25, 1988

Right now the hurt is so bad that there’s no way any of it could have been worth it. It just hurts too much, too much to smile, too much to look at the night sky, too much to wish or remember or even breath.

Susan says she’ll always be my friend. Will she? Is she now? At some point she must have stopped being my friend and started simply cushioning my fall. Why? Maybe she just felt guilty about leaving me.

Tuesday, September 27, 1988

I got a call from back home today. They offered me a job, wanting me to start on October 24. Can you believe that? At exactly the same time, ironically enough, Susan got a job up here and will be moving up the same weekend I’m moving down. Our ships will pass in the night.

“You can never be friends again,” someone told me this weekend, “you can only be ex-lovers.”

I knew that day would come when we’d have to say goodbye. I sat in stunned silence tonight, unable to respond, when she said to me, “It never worked.” How could she begin to say that after all the feelings we shared?

“The day will come,” I told her two years ago, unaware that she had a crush on me, unaware of the emotions and players in the mix, unaware of the way we were destined to tear each other asunder, unaware of many things, “when we’ll have to say goodbye.”

Goodbye, goodbye. Our love was so good. I’m sorry it had to end this way. I’m sorry it had to end. Something inside me is dying.

 

– Still Return –

Monday, June 19, 1989

I write in my journal by the light of the summer moon as I have returned to the Acme Road Bridge three years after it all happened.

It is exactly as I remember, as though I were here yesterday. But tonight, no one is falling in love. The trucks on the interstate pass under the Bridge, the moon rises slowly to the southeast, the lights from the factories and colleges shine in rows in the distance. The gravel road and the dirt turnout where we parked are exactly the same.

I feel lost in time and space, as though it were 1986 again, and I had closed my eyes for a moment. I almost expect her voice to ask me what I’m thinking, to shatter this dark dream.

Tonight, though, it is my own car sitting by this dusty, dimly lit side road. There is no voice teasing and exploring and inviting me to fall in love. There are no green eyes watching for feelings hidden inside.

I never thought it could hurt this much.