With Me

Remember what why and how?1

And whatever, that ones important too, because that was always your response as a teenager. Whatever. Later it became that sucks then that blows and then motherfucker I can’t believe I did that. Now you mostly stay quiet, basking in the glory of adulthood. Or rather, you are generally too tired after a long day of work to make much of a fuss these days.2

You’re like my mother and my father and my favorite cousin and my older brother but you are no one. You are just a person, and I am just a person and you always tell me never ever to forget that. It was one of those semi angry life lessons you told me when we first met. When you were just a boy in the ripped up jeans and leather jacket, before you became my sage.3

One time I asked you where you procured all of this knowledge you continually dropped on me. You laughed. To be honest it scared me a bit, but I put it out of my head and thought, “whatever”. I will learn whatever lesson you want to teach me. And I’ve always figured that if you don’t want to teach me you’d stop answering my phone calls. It’s that easy. It’s always been that easy.4

You told me once that you would never give me the “secret to success” because there was no secret and there was no success. It was more useful to give me life lessons that I could use every day, like how to get out of a DUI and how to seduce my way out of paying for things or getting arrested for shoplifting. The first time you taught me to flirt in exchange for discounts I took it the wrong way. I was 13 and had never been kissed and the way you looked at me was so enticing and confusing. I reached over to bring your lips closer to mine. You pulled back, grinned big and told me that you were an expert at this, now it was my turn to try. You didn’t try to kiss me when I tried my new technique out on you. I supposed that meant that I wasn’t very good and I should practice. That night I came home and by god, you were in my dreams. You were a sales clerk in a blue vest and you reached over a clear glass display to kiss me. I woke up and you weren’t there and it wasn’t that surprising. I knew from then on I had a problem you couldn’t help me solve.5

You started telling me when I reached my senior year in high school that you wanted to teach me about college. You drug me to frat parties and bought me vodka and cigarettes and you set me free. One night I woke up in the backseat of your car with bruises on my wrists. You told me never to leave my drink and come back to it again. I hadn’t even known that you were watching.6

Later, when I tried harder drugs the first time you were with me. You stood in the doorway, watching me snort a line of cocaine and smile wildly at everyone in the room. You shimmered with me the whole night, always two steps behind me, always carefully watching. I was flammable, I was leaving you, and I was a little girl in a tiny dress in a huge world. I was alone.7

You told me that you wouldn’t follow me to college. I wasn’t surprised but I was quite disappointed. I knew better, to drop a job and a life to follow someone like me… that was unheard of and impossible. You told me that we would stay in touch. I made that happen.8

The first time I had sex I called you from the bathroom. I was embarrassed, I’d bled on some poor family’s sheets and the guy who I’d slept with had just been flirting with me a bit in German class for a month. I was a little drunk and in high heels and I felt tender and angry and bruised. You drove three hours to come and get me from the IHOP two blocks away from the scene of my indiscretion. You looked drained in the light, but so did I, so it didn’t matter.9

You loaded me into the car and I fell asleep almost immediately. When I woke up I was in a hotel room. I was under the covers; you were at the opposite side of the bed on top of the comforter. I reached out to make sure you were real. Real enough, I decided. I smiled and fell back to sleep, reassured that tomorrow my life would be on track again. 10