It all Began in 1985...

Yes, that's a shot of 17th Ave Park. A place I spent a lot of time as a kid, starting when I was a baby. I took my first steps ice skating in February 1976 over a huge puddle that turned into ice. Dorothy Hamill won the gold at Innsbruck, and I decided I wanted skates. Sheena and I met in 1978, and she moved around Bensonhurst and Gravesend often. In 1984, she moved to 19th Avenue. A very funny, chubby kid lived next door. His name was Chris. In July 1985, I was informed by a letter that he liked me. Took him a while to get the courage to call me, but when he did, a chapter in our lives was born.

Those are the benches where we'd sit and laugh. They've changed a few times in 30+ years. An amazing picture of Sheena and I was taken here, by Chris, in January 1987. We found ourselves drifting over here in the winter to look at the trees covered in ice, swing on the monkey bars (now long gone) and enjoy the wind coming off the water. We loved winter and snow. One of the funniest pictures of Chris was him flinging a snowball at a girl named Sherrie, who looked eerily like me. Jr. showed it to me in November 1995, the last time I saw him, ever. It really hurts to write that.

We were born 4.5 blocks from each other, and now I realize we were basically 5 hrs away from each other in a different state. Pisces always swim in schools, clustered, even if we dart off in different directions.

These past 3 weeks have been hell on me. I don't know what made me look after so many years. I honestly believed he was out there, married with kids, most likely to someone who reminded him of me. That used to be his modus operandi. He once told me the sequel is never as good as the original. I didn't understand that at the time. There was no joy in realizing that I was his first love, a prototype of sorts, when he wasn't mine. Oh, how easy that would have been. I can never truly explain, nor understand, the forces that conspired to keep us apart.

Strange phone calls and pranks happened when we tried to get close in 1987, 2 yrs after we'd first met. Someone's garage was set on fire. Tires were slashed. A NYPD detective called me and grilled me about this. People would call my house at 4 in the morning and just leave the phone there. The way landlines worked, the other party would have to hang up, or your phone was pretty much useless. This happened and I don't know who it was. It certainly wasn't anyone in my Bay Ridge bunch. I had gotten sick of them after the 2 bitchy girls with dark hair jumped me near 67th street. I was pretty spooked by then. My mother pretty much laid down the law and it was no marathon phone calls from this boy anymore. Which is hilarious, because she later admitted Chris was her "favorite", which makes no sense to me. I suspect it was Frank and Charlene doing this, I don't think he wanted Chris to be happy in any way. Amazing what a little jealousy can turn you into. There was also Phil and Anthony or Antoine? God, I don't remember. He kept me away from all of them. He was very protective of things he loved. Books, magazines, musical instruments and people. It took me years to see this, and I still don't understand it.

After May 1987, there were no phone calls. I took a detour on the night I met someone I truly adored, on August 14, 1987. The party I was at was on Bay 22nd St, exactly the opposite side of houses connected to 19th Avenue. I walked past the house and screamed, "Hey, Chris!" It had to be 2 am. He flung the door open and said nothing. I knew he was up, though. We were always nite owls. He found the courage to start calling me in September 1987, just a month later. The garage and all the detective stuff had died down. But the feeling was lost. He had a new girlfriend a few months later, and I was wrapped up in serious academics that being my Junior year. SATs were eating me alive and I never even got a decent score. My parent's marriage was at its breaking point and my father's crew of drinking and gambling buddies were starting to die off, one by one. He ended up in rehab himself at the beginning of January 1989. That's how tough 1988 was. It damn near killed me, too.

Nothing will recapture that feeling of 1987, the phone calls, the music, and knowing the possibilities were endless. I miss the snow, the spring, the pizza shop near Caesar's Bay and the laughs. That's being a teenager, I guess. And knowing someone loved me. I couldn't tell back then. I didn't do "hints" very well. I still don't. That's the nature of INTJ. We are direct, in-your-face, and want immediate communication. I didn't figure out half the things he told me until I was about 30, honestly.

Chris saw the world very specifically, giving roles to things that should have worked out or behaved the way he wanted. This never happens, and the roles we ascribe to people and things destroy expectations, which in turn, causes disappointment and anger. He could be the rageaholic at times, and I think this was the root of this. Underneath it all, I just don't think he had too many smart people around him. They were average. They wanted to fit in, they were there, but sometimes, he just didn't want to be alone. He'd never admit this, but I knew it was true. Pisces like to experience and experiment things, not necessarily drugs and drink (we are constantly accused of this), but people. Just to see what happens. A nugget of truth. A bit of "what if" that only another person can provide.

These memories are coming at me, disjointed and pelting me like hail. I just have to go slow and get it all out. If ever I needed a reason to start blogging again, well, this is a pretty good reason.

Random memory: a giant waterbug came out from under the dryer last night. I thought of Charlie, the waterbug in the old garage. He'd fly across the floor and Chris sat down and starting riffing on his guitar. He called it Charlie's Song. I don't know if Charlie got away, but these are the very funny things he did. It's why I miss him, and always will. This paying-bills and grown-up business is very hard sometimes. I have lived in service of debt, bills, loans and rent. I forgot how to have fun so many years ago, sadly, it has become a memory. I wish I could turn my brain off sometimes, but that's not how I work. Even back then, I could feel the pressure to go faster, run run run run...ugh, how exhausting. It never stopped. Fibromyalgia was my body's way of saying, "Fuck everyone, you need a rest." And it pisses people off, too! I'm not using time or speed as an excuse. I'm burying friends now. I've been to 3x the amount of funerals and memorials than I ever did weddings, and now I've hit the age where those weddings are turning into divorces.

Such is life.

More to come...my brain is spilling out. If no one really knew this guy, well, I did. I'm putting it all here.