So Many Ways to Sleep Badly

by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

  At hatha yoga, I can’t do anything on my hands, but it’s still better than nothing. Afterwards, I feel stronger until I get outside and depression sets in like hair dye. Permanent? The bus driver makes me pay because my transfer has expired, bitch this is San Francisco! I want to kill him. Zan says he’s moving to New York, a vortex opened up after 9-11 and people finally treat each other well, all these amazing things are happening. Is she doing drugs?

  The St. Francis has fallen on hard times—the lobby chandelier looks grand, but the carpet in the hallway looks like a bad flashback from the seventies. The bathroom in my trick’s room is a disgrace—scratches on the floor, chrome peeling off the handles of the cabinet, shade missing from the window, which is—gasp—black-framed. In an all-white bathroom! Can you believe the security guard at Whole Foods has started following me around? In therapy, I’m crying about my mother, all the little animals that can’t take care of themselves—seals and sheep and mice—they never meant anybody harm! Pearls: they’re beautiful, but entire coral reefs are destroyed for them. All the little animals and me, my mother’s claws digging in. The smell of her period in my face, I don’t want to get graphic here but here’s graphic.

  Did I mention last week’s therapy, where I became my mother? Saying: I don’t know what to do about those brats, I think he does something to them ’cause when they come back upstairs, they’re dead—just give me some more of that Di-loaded. At home, she actually calls me and why do I talk to her? End up becoming her therapist; she says sometimes I get so depressed about you that I don’t want to live anymore.

  Rue calls me on my cellphone, his voice is so tense. I say: are you high? He says: no, but there’s a lot going on, can I come over your house, I’m nearby. I say: I’m at Cha-ya with Jeremy, do you need me to come meet you? Rue needs me, Jeremy drops me off at the BART and then I start crying because Rue never asks for help, what if he tested positive and I don’t want to cry right when he says it. Some healer-type person on the BART looks at me and says we are all born two-legged creatures; our goal is to become human.

  FISH TANK

  I’m kissing Rue’s ears and forehead and he starts sobbing softly, tears running down his face I’m kissing them it feel romantic. Maybe that’s the wrong word—I’m wondering about the way beauty accompanies sadness and whether that’s scary. I look at Rue’s eyes, so much softness and yearning. All that glassy green and why do I look away?

  I hold Rue and he says sometimes I just wish I could spit it all out, all the horrible things in the world—I’ve just been so stressed, I need to find what’s going to give me the most meaning and I’m just not sure. In Rue’s dream, he was worried about a fish tank, how it needed a certain kind of water. He says I’ve just been so busy, all the doctor’s appointments—I’ve decided not to drink or do drugs at all, it just doesn’t make sense when the alcohol and the psych meds were so much a part of what got me to where I am. I mean, I take full responsibility, but there were just all those nights when I blacked out and found myself wandering home at 6 a.m., no idea what I’d just done.

  Rue says maybe I stayed negative for so long because I wasn’t on any psych meds. I’m glad she brings up the meds because that way I can talk about them. I say honey, you were scary when you were on the highest dosage, you’d get that crazed violent look in your eyes like that time on the beach when you started talking about how wouldn’t it be great to know how to kill an animal with your bare hands? I mean, you said that to me and I thought it was the meds, but then I thought maybe you were becoming scary. I didn’t want to take away your right to choose. But then your dosage went down and I thought good, she’s back.

  In one of my dreams, there are hundreds of cops in the kitchen, a naked Latino hustler with a hard-on and I worry that the hustler’s going to get arrested. We’re in the center of a dark city like Warsaw, above it all in a fetish bar/hotel-for-Pride but it’s also organized crime and dangerous red chandeliers. In my second dream, there’s a huge cop, towering over the rich straight couple that are accusing me of stealing the woman’s purse on the beach, before I even get to my trick’s house. How am I going to defend myself?

  I wake up to a message from Jeremy saying I can’t wait to see you. I go over to meet him in the East Bay and we eat at Cha-ya, and then go over to his house to lie in bed because he’s tired from doing K all weekend. It just feels so great lying there with him, especially hugging him from behind which is the way he likes it, even if it makes my shoulder hurt. I want someone to come in and snap a photo.

  We go to Aquatic Park because Sarah’s home. I want to have sex in the apartment anyway, but I guess there is only that sheet separating Jeremy’s bed in the closet from the rest of the apartment. We walk out on this dock to a pagoda and etch M + J into the railing because Mattilda + Jeremy is too hard to write. A woman walks her dog as the sun goes down and the fags start arriving, Jeremy says does she know what goes on in this park? The mosquitoes are biting my legs while Jeremy’s sucking my cock—which he’s become an expert at, seven months really helps—then he’s holding me from behind while I shoot deep into the trees, and the woman throws a ball for her dog with one of those ball-throwers, and a few guys sort of watch. Jeremy hugs me and says I love you and it’s so sweet. I always resist saying I love you after sex ’cause I’m thinking that’s cheesy, but it’s weird to resist—it’s not some random person, it’s beautiful beautiful Jeremy who makes me feel little and strong.

  Later, I’m holding Rue outside some terrible party because it’s way too smoky for me inside, she says I just want you to know that you’re such an inspiration to me, you’re so calm and healthy and clear. I’m not sure if I feel calm or healthy or clear—I just feel like crying. I say you’re an inspiration to me too; she brightens like a little boy, really? Of course you are—you know that—you always have been. For ten years. We’re hugging outside, and when the cops arrive to shut down the party—straight indie rockers and suburban jocks and bad bad music—we’re still hugging.

  I wake up from a dream where Jeremy wants to die and then he does, just from willing it, and when I wake up I’m scared, even though I know it’s just superstition. I call Jeremy anyway and leave a message. Then I get all hypoglycemic and worried about losing him, which happens so fast, my stomach clenches up and I feel nauseous, what if he met someone else? I know it’s stupid but I can’t help feeling it. At therapy, I close my eyes and picture the exhaustion, my skeleton with blood and guts everywhere, standing in front of me with huge fangs, ready to cut out my heart and eat it. Karen says what do you want it to do? I let it eat my heart and then I’m dead, that skeleton on the ground with bugs and people stepping on it, cracking my ribs. Even though I’m dead, everything still hurts.

  Then there’s a part of me floating away in a flower basket, seals in a pool but that pool’s not big enough for seals. Mountains and lakes for the seals and I’m playing with them, it’s so much fun. Then people arrive and kill the seals for their fur, I keep seeing the image from the zoo of seals cut open and their bellies filled with the pennies people throw in the water.

  EVERYTHING SHOULD BE EASY

  Globalization at its worst: someone on the subway in Paris asks Andee if he knows CeCe Peniston, you know that terrible house diva. I can’t remember what she sings. Then, when I’m on the subway, someone asks me if I was on TV. He means: were you on one of those talk shows in the mid-nineties about club kids? I say yeah, I was Farrah Fawcett in The Burning Bed.

  I get a hot trick—I just love watching his facial expressions and pounding out grunts. When I say look at me, and we come together, he says that doesn’t even happen in the movies. Afterwards, he gives me a ride home. On O’Farrell, four cops stand over a homeless man they’ve hog-tied on the sidewalk. The trick says that’s the worst—having to arrest a dirty person. So much for our connection.

  Benjamin says to Ralowe: this stream-of-consciousness thing has gone too far. We’re on our way to a movie at the Four Star. At the Vietnam
ese restaurant, all these white yuppies are staring at us. It’s like they’ve never heard faggots talking about sex in a restaurant before. Or maybe they’re scared of Ralowe’s Afro, my earrings, and Benjamin’s makeup. Or my inappropriately gendered and loudly mismatching thrift store finery, Benjamin’s professionally coiffed dreadlocks styled into a Mohawk, and all 600 safety pins clinging precariously to Ralowe’s threadbare jeans. Or Benjamin’s scolding, Ralowe’s scowl, and my cackling. Maybe these customers don’t like race-mixing or clunky shoes, or maybe they’re just listening carefully for the ticking sound of suicide bombs—our bags are big. And Benjamin is loud—sometimes I wonder who she’s talking to.

  I make the mistake of stopping at the Dore Alley Street Fair. On the way there, this circuit monster is having a seizure from I-don’tknow-what scary drug combination, his friends are holding him up against a wall while another friend runs away to party some more. They’re all so tan and buff and tweaked, and I’m worried the guy’s going to die, but I don’t know how to help. My mood goes so low, I keep saying I need to go home and commit suicide. Ralowe says this is more embarrassing than going to see any Steven Spielberg movie, ’cause I’m always making fun of him for that. He’s right; it’s so depressing what gay people are. Ralowe hugs me, but I’m still ready to die.

  I rush home in a cab, tear off my clothes because really I feel dirty, and Jeremy arrives just as I’m getting dressed. I’m sketchy, we get in bed and it actually works, just resting my hand on his hip makes me so calm.

  I show Jeremy how I fuck my kitchen counter, and he holds me from behind—I use olive oil because it’s there—I come in a sticky pile instead of the boom-boom-boom. We hold each other in so many ways, days and days and days. My cellphone rings, this guy wants to know if I have a discount for married guys with kids. Yes, of course your straight privilege applies even when you’re hiring a man to fuck you. On NPR, involuntary treatment helps people with mental illness to regain control of their lives! First trick wants me to come, and I get hypoglycemic. Thinking: I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. While I’m kissing him. Maybe this isn’t so healthy right now, but then he pays me. Second trick is more fun; I like the way his dick beats in my hand after he comes.

  After acupuncture, I feel kind of high but crashing, like everything in the world could lift away and I’d be left walking on the sidewalk. Rue says he went to the Powerhouse, there was a guy gnawing at Rue’s pants like he couldn’t figure out how to open them, the guy was so fucked up. I meet Jeremy at his new place in the Mission; he’s so excited about it. He says isn’t this the best apartment—I could live here for the rest of my life. It’s a railroad apartment that’s been fixed up since its tenement days: new light fixtures and kitchen appliances, and very shiny pine floors—I wouldn’t want to pay $1800 for it, but I wouldn’t want to live with all the hipsters and yuppies in the Mission, even if it was free—I’d get too depressed and have to move to another city. I keep this to myself. Jeremy and I lie in bed for a while and then I take him out to Millennium—on our way, we’re holding hands on Eighteenth St. and it’s funny, flashbacks of Zan from years ago—the Mission, holding hands. Jeremy looks so cute in the blue shirt with brown tie, and the sparkly blue hoop earrings I got him.

  At Millennium, this woman says to her friend: we meet in the most exotic places, remember Uruguay? But otherwise it’s so fun, eating slowly and enjoying it, sharing blueberry blackened tempeh and marinated chanterelle mushrooms with Jeremy, and staring at him until he gets nervous and starts to talk a lot. We go back to his house and of course he comes on my face, then he’s drifting off while I’m hugging him and slowly grinding into his side. I keep asking: is this okay? He says yeah, it’s lulling me to sleep. I keep grinding, and the pressure on the top of my dick feels so good, slowly faster then harder, hugging Jeremy tighter and tighter and even panting until I just love that I’m screaming and I’m here in bed with Jeremy. He turns around to kiss me, those lips and hands and sweet sweet droopy eyelids. Afterwards, I’m just so fucking high, watching the reflection of the lamp on the ceiling while Jeremy tries to sleep.

  When Jeremy gives up on the nap, we talk about one of his linguistics terms—bilabial slips, or is it stops? I think it’s when two consonant sounds are different because with one you use the vocal chords and with the other you don’t: mmm and nnn. We practice them. At Whole Foods, this old queen in tweed says I love your outfit, the patterns and the colors—how sweet. It’s one of my contrasting plaid days, and at least the security guard isn’t following me—I get free condoms and passionflower tincture, and only spend $9.

  Rue says he feels like there are six hamsters in wet suits doing goofy-foot in his intestines. And why can’t Wylie have an easy conversation, Rue’s tired of being reminded he has the AIDS. I’m worried that we’re not connecting, but Ralowe says: seeing you two interact gives me hope in the world. On the radio, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz talks about a class she’s teaching called The Sexuality of Terrorism: most of my students were involved in the military, they taught me a lot of what I know—they didn’t like what was happening to them, and they wanted to figure out how to stop it.

  But I can’t remember: am I always this depressed? There was a window of opportunity after I got a massage, but it was a closed window. I throw a book off my fire escape because it’s boring. Help! I can’t rearrange the clothes and papers on the sofas, papers on the table, papers on the desk. My hands hurt too much to write, my head hurts too much to think. Oh the sadness, pure madness! It’s too early to go to bed, and I never sleep well anyway. Why are there hills in my floor? After my nap, this guy comes over and I suck his cock, it puts me in a good mood, then Adam X is taking me to the dark electro techno dance floor, but there’s my sinus headache—pulling my eyes into caves.

  This guy asks Jaysen and me for money at the BART, then as soon as Jaysen drives away, he says: you’re gonna burn in hell for being gay. Doesn’t even raise his voice—just the facts, ma’am. Rhania says she licked someone’s nose that had a lot of coke in it, and got a stomachache. Help—somebody vacuum up the leftovers before the roaches arrive in V-formation like seagulls locked up! This trick wants to spank me but he can’t afford much, then he just wants to meet me and thank me for my time. The bitch makes me miss Jeremy’s call, I get so upset and angry with myself that I’m screaming and hitting a book against my head. Okay, so I haven’t eaten yet. I spend the whole day taking naps, winter in August and I love the way the right side of my jaw goes numb—retro-futurism at its finest! At the end of the movie, a plane drives up on the beach—just another runway, silly. Get in.

  The Palace is always impressive, with its endless lobby of chandeliers, but what is this crap they have as shampoo? At the Palomar, they serve only Aveda—the bath bar and rosemary mint shampoos are my favorites. I’d never buy them because I’m sure they have tons of preservatives, but I love my luxurious shower. Can you believe they sell every item in the rooms at the W? The bed is $700, or maybe that’s just the extra pillow top—the desk is $1400. I’m sick of seeing that cheesy photo in the bathroom: “Datura and Stone.” I guess a Datura is something that looks like a calla lily.

  The W has Aveda products, but not the bath bar. The blue light in the elevator is cute, but the chrome walls are scuffed, and why are people drinking cocktails in an elevator? Back at the Palace, everything except the toiletries is absolutely perfect and posh, old money but not falling apart like the Fairmont, though the Jacuzzi doesn’t work. I take a bubble bath.

  I’ve tried everything to get rid of this jock itch. First, the anti-fungal powder with grapefruit seed extract and tea tree oil. Then chaparral tincture, which Rue suggested—it burned! I diluted it, but that just made my fingers sticky. Then I tried some anti-itching lotion for all areas, but honey that was so painful I had to jump into a cold shower and scream. Tinactin didn’t work either—I don’t know what to do, when the trick in the Palace rubs my balls, I almost bite my lip. He says: the hardest part is saying goodbye.
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  So much powder in my crotch, is it affecting my sinuses? Clouds in my apartment—the fog has moved in. But these are dust clouds; Vegas in my heart and my balls still itch! I thought maybe this homeopathic florazone cream was working, but the burning wakes me up at 9 a.m. Jock itch is my payback for being such a jock, I guess, though I can barely tie my shoes without hurting something.

  I meet Rhania and Erica in the Castro, where I get that wonderful desperate-longing-for-something-I-hate feeling. What’s great is that I have Jeremy, beautiful Jeremy—last night he put noodles on his head like a wig, do I look weird this way? No, you just look special. Later, he wasn’t horny because he’d just had sex in the bathrooms. I was kind of annoyed, but I asked him how that made him feel. He said I don’t like talking about my feelings. Either way, I kissed and kissed him until I felt like sleeping there, but had to leave because of today’s 2 p.m. trick at my house.

  Later, Jeremy’s sketchy and we have one of those annoying conversations. He says ginkgo biloba—it doesn’t help your memory, natural health is a niche market ploy! Why do I argue with him? Later, we have a second annoying conversation—is San Francisco a progressive city? This one’s ongoing; today Jeremy thinks SF is progressive because homeless people can still get general assistance, even if it might get taken away at the ballot. $370 a month—how progressive!

  I get so exhausted that I can’t possibly function, we go to my house and Jeremy wants to leave. I thought we were going to take a nap together—that’s one of my favorite things. But this time Jeremy doesn’t want to take a nap, or leave and come back either—he wants to go drinking with someone he doesn’t even like that much. I get all dramatic, catch myself changing my expression when Jeremy looks at me, so I’ll look okay. I tell him that. I feel really vulnerable. I ask him to stay. I say: I just feel sad right now—and you make me happier.