Disconnected

by J. Cafesin

  I felt myself shriveling inside. I sat statue still hardly breathing, scared to speak, afraid he'd leave me forever if I uttered another word. I'd expected him to stay, like any Saturday night, hold me, spoon me, assure me everything was okay. I wanted him to want to change, to work at becoming what he'd promised me.

  Lee turned into my driveway, pulled his Mercedes only up to the front door walkway, put it in Park and sat sullen behind the wheel.

  "Are you sure you don't want to come in. I'll be nicer." I gave him a cheeky grin but he didn't acknowledge it.

  "I just need some space tonight, Ray. Let's not make this into more than it is." He slid his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me in for a kiss, heartfelt but quick. "I'll see you tomorrow. We'll talk then. Okay?"

  "Okay." But I still felt afraid. I wanted him to be the man to save me, provide the life and family I sought, be my knight, or at least to still believe he could be.

  "Goodnight."

  "Goodnight." I hesitated, then opened the car door and got out but turned back and bent down to see him. "You know Lee, there are moments I really love you."

  He focused on me then and for a second I felt our connection. "To be honest my dear, moments may not be enough." His face hardened into his poker expression. Then Lee disconnected again, leaned over and shut the passenger door then backed out of the driveway.

  I watched him pull onto the street and drive away, then went into the house, shut myself and Face in my bedroom and cried my eyes out. Lee was right. I was a judgmental bitch. He'd merely expressed the incessant desire for weed I too had been battling, and I'd indicted him for it. And even if he was suggesting he 'indulge occasionally,' would that really be so bad as long as it wasn't around me, or our kids.

  Accept Lee for who he was or lose him. Lonely loomed, black and choking. My sister was right. I found fault with everyone I dated, from the pragmatists for being too detached, and quite frankly boring, to the creatives for being neurotic egomaniacs. Chris was right. We're all screwed up and I expected too much. And my parents were rightly enamored with Lee. He was the best thing I'd found in seven years, with an even more powerful connection than my childhood affections for Michael. And I prayed to hope I'd not chased him away.

  It was lightly sprinkling, and what should have been a fifteen minute drive took almost an hour in crawling traffic to get to Lee's place. A black BMW with tinted windows crept alongside me like a spider. We jockeyed for first position in our respective lanes for a mile or so but when the Beemer's lane opened up allowing it to move ahead, it stayed pacing me.

  Fuck. All I needed was to get shot before telling Lee I was sorry for tonight, for everything I'd done and said. A bullet to my head now would be a B-movie at best, a footnote among many between the headlines of the violence erupting all over L.A.

  The BMW's driver and back windows opened simultaneously. Faces of at least three white boys looked comic green in the twilight from the headlights and freeway lamps. The guy in the back seat held what looked like beer bottles in both hands, an offering to me apparently, and yelled "Party! Party!" The driver and passenger pointed at the road sign for the Forest Lawn exit and yelled what looked like "Follow us!"

  Trapped by the SUV in front of me and their Beemer on my right, I ignored them. Then one of them appeared through the sunroof, his body emerging from the vehicle to his waist. He waved wildly and when I continued to ignore him he threw a beer bottle at my car. I swerved into the breakdown lane and slammed on my brakes to avoid the bottle hitting my windshield, the car behind me just barely missing slamming into me. The BMW screeched away, the guy in the sunroof flipping me off as they went.

  I tried to let go of my outrage as I stood at Lee's door and knocked. I thought I smelled pot, but then figured it must be his neighbor, Carl.

  Lee opened the door and the smell of weed came rushing out into the hallway. "Hi. What are you doing here?" he asked casually, his green eyes glassy. When I didn't say anything he moved aside to let me in. "Come in if you want to."

  "You're getting high," I managed.

  "Yeah. Want to join me? Come in!" He gestured toward his living room.

  I still didn't, couldn't move. It felt as if my blood was boiling. I didn't say anything in fear I'd come undone if I opened my mouth.

  "Look, are you going to come in or not because I am not going to stand here with the door open for very much longer." He didn't say it mad, he spoke very matter-of-factly.

  "I am afraid to."

  "Afraid of what? Of pot? Of me? Of yourself? What are you afraid of, Ray?" He asked, more annoyed than anything else.

  "I am afraid of you. I am afraid of myself. I am afraid if I come in I'll walk out high tonight and I don't want to get high anymore."

  "Then don't. I'm not going to force you. Just come in. We can talk inside."

  I heard the elevator ding, his condo right across from it. When the elevator door started to open I went into his flat. Lee shut the door and went into his kitchen where a bunch of weed was scattered in a box top. He glanced at me with his poker expression, completely disconnected, then went back to rolling a joint. I just stood there like an idiot watching.

  "So, why are you here?" he asked as he licked the rolling paper and refined the joint between his fingers. He raised it in a toast at me before he stuck it in his mouth and sparked it. He took a deep hit, his expression taking on his Cheshire grin as he slowly exhaled.

  I flipped. I smacked the joint out of his hand. Hard. It went flying into the living room and landed on the carpet still burning. Lee ran to get it. I went into the kitchen and wiped the counter clean in one pass. The buds of weed in the box top flew everywhere. "You fucking liar! I came over here to apologize to you, thank you for abstaining the last three and a half months, congratulate the achievement and beg forgiveness for denigrating it earlier. I came to give you the out with weed, to use occasionally if that's what you need, but you've already taken it. For how long, Lee? When did you go back to using? Or did you ever quit? And thanks for cluing me in mother-fucker!"

  Lee ignored me, went in his kitchen holding the joint he'd retrieved then got on his knees to collect the buds scattered on the floor.

  "I was straight up with you from the very beginning. You knew I didn't want to be with an addict. You promised me you were everything I've been holding out for. What happened to that?" My words pouring from my mouth like water through a dam. "I told you I need to be with someone disciplined, that I'm an obsessive like you, but you swore to me you weren't. Well, eating whatever you like without restraint isn't making me fat." I couldn't stop even knowing I was hurting him. "You said you were ready to grow up. You promised me you'd get your money shit together. How is blowing who knows how much on weed, and hundreds weekly on art you don't need and books you don't read getting it together?" It was a rhetorical question. "And how do you afford whatever your whim when you're $360,000 in debt?" I knew the answer to that too, but I managed to shut up.

  "My money issues are not your concern, or at least they shouldn't be. I've treated you nicely, and that's all that matters." He didn't say it angry. He collected the weed from the floor and dropped in the box top.

  "You really don't get it, do you." I stared at him in bewilderment but he didn't even glance at me. "If we're together, working towards forever, then every part of your life concerns me, from your addiction to weed, to your obsession with food, to your money problems. All of it. I'd hope my issues are of equal concern to you. I'm looking for total disclosure, complete transparency, not as a concept, a nice idea, but for real. I told you all this back when we first met, and again when you wanted to move beyond friendship. I thought you got it."

  He took another hit off the joint and silently collected buds of weed.

  I wanted to kick him in the head to get his attention but continued ranting instead. "And I'm not half as mad at you as I am at me. I'm an idiot falling for your crap, for not listening to my intuition when it told me you were just a good salesman
, even to yourself— living in delusion about who you imagine you are but will never be."

  "I'm not delusional, Rachel." He glanced at me then, his expression filled with arrogance and anger. "I'm your goddamn mirror, sweetie."

  "Well, at least you got that right. And I'm yours, honey, reflecting you on your knees to obsession, modeling who I don't want to be, or be with." I walked out. Stormed out actually, slamming the door behind me.

  I stood outside his door for quite some time, shaking, debating whether to go back in or not, hoping he'd come out, beg me to stay, agree to quit using again, call it a 'slip.' Maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. Even if he was addicted to weed, if he was fully-functional, able to handle finances, family, and me, what did it matter? And I wanted to believe it, but didn't. My obsession with Lee was born out of desperation, in search of someone to save me from myself. I scoffed and shook my head at my idiocy, then pressed the down button on the elevator and when it opened to collect me for the third time, I got in and went home.

  The red light on my answering machine was blinking when I got back after midnight. "Hi," Lee's voice sounded sad, not angry. "God, I guess I really blew it tonight. I know I promised you, and more importantly myself that I wouldn't get high and I blew it. I guess I am just not ready to quit yet. I know that's not what you want to hear. I don't know what to say to make things right between us. I'm sorry I let you down." He stopped, and I thought he hung up because there were several seconds of silence. "Call me. We need to talk." He paused again, then added quickly, "I really do love you, Rachel. Call me. Bye."

  I dialed his number straight away, but hung up before connecting. My mind raced. I wanted to tell him I loved him and we would work things out together, but couldn't fathom how. He could never achieve the stability I sought in a partnership. He chose home alone to get high instead of being with me tonight. He'd choose using again and again over me. He had no intention of quitting weed. He didn't care about staying in shape, eating right, living healthy or getting his finances together. It was just a matter of time before he went back to gambling, assuming he wasn't doing it already. Lee was an addict, and I'd known this about him from our first phone conversation. Choose to stay with him and I'd have to settle on always being second to his siren of obsession. And my intuition clearly trumpeted, You don't need Lee.

  4/16/92

  Instant gratification is a hallmark of childhood, and addiction.

  -

  Chapter 26

  The usual Sunday morning religious crap was on at 5:00a.m. Meet The Press came on PBS at 6:00, with legal experts discussing the Rodney King jury now in deliberation. When they showed the video beating for the fifth time in ten minutes, I flipped through the nine stations again.

  I sat in bed, desire waging war with reason in my head. Shadows from old oaks and pines moved across the lush green of my neighbors manicured front lawn as the morning passed. It got harder to breathe with each passing minute I didn't hear from Lee. I was into my fourth rerun of Star Trek, The Next Generation when the phone rang around noon.

  "Hi." Lee practically yelled into the phone.

  "Hi. Where are you?" I heard traffic in the background.

  "I'm at a phone booth somewhere in Griffith Park. Rode my bike here early this morning. I was up most of the night trying to figure out how to fit into— live up to who you want me to be." He didn't say anything while a blaring siren passed. "But I can't. You were right from the beginning. We shouldn't be together if you can't accept me as I am."

  My breath caught in my throat. "Just tell me if you think I was wrong last night."

  "This isn't about right and wrong, my dear. I'm not who you want, Ray. You've made that abundantly clear. And I don't see the point in pursuing a relationship from here. Do you?"

  Yes! No. Vertigo. I felt like I was suffocating, drowning, falling down, down, down into blackness. Until that moment I'd assumed it was my choice if we stayed together but realized right then he was ready to walk.

  "Look, the bottom line is I need to be with someone who respects me and I don't feel you do. I don't see where we can go from here without a foundation of mutual respect."

  "I respect you, Lee, in a lot of areas, from your business savvy to your generosity. If you're looking for blind adoration, I can't give you that."

  "And I can't give you the security you're looking for. I'm not that guy with the supportive family who traveled Europe while going to college and now has a budding white-collar career. I'll never have a king for a father and I'll never be a valiant prince."

  "I'm not asking you to be. I just want you to work at becoming who you promised me. Relationships are about compromise, Lee."

  "Right back at ya, sweetie. I love you, Rachel. I want to be with you, but as me, not trying to be who you want me to be. And addict or not, you're right— I will rarely be a model of restraint since living on the edge of contained is infinitely more entertaining than taking the conventional route." There was levity in his tone, I felt it through the line, and couldn't help smiling, again reminded of the basis for our deep connection. “I like who I am, Ray. I'm sorry you don't.”

  I sighed heavily. "I love you, too, Lee. But I will always want to be more than I am, and want to be with a partner who does too." Regardless of the media rhetoric of the woman's role in society, or what my friends did, or my family thought, continuing to distort reality/intuition with desire/desperation suddenly didn't seemed doable anymore. Sadness consumed me, but I knew accepting Lee unconditionally would leave me constantly wanting. It was the life I already had, and Lee, in fact nobody, could save me from it... but me. "So, that's it then? We're over?" I heard my words as if someone else had spoken them. Life without Lee, letting him go completely was simply inconceivable, beyond withdrawal, on par with death.

  A horn blared in the background and Lee was quiet for what seemed a long time. "I don't want to lose you, Ray, not after how far we've come. We can still be friends, or at least play racquetball if you want to..."

  "I want to." And I want you to fight for me, be everything you promised me, or at least try to be, but I was pretty sure I didn't say it.

  "I don't want to come to Passover tomorrow, though. It'd feel to weird if we're not together anymore, and I don't want to pretend.”

  “Okay.” I pictured my mother's pinched expression and felt the lump rising in my throat, choking me as I considered Passover at my sister's without Lee.

  “So, I guess I'll see you on the courts on Wednesday at the usual time?"

  His promise we'd see each other sated me a bit. "Okay," I murmured.

  "I wish it could be different between us."

  "Me too. Makes me very sad." I tried to control the quiver in my voice.

  "Me, too. Take care and I'll see ya Wednesday then." He didn't say anything else but stayed on the line. "Please hang up first," he finally said.

  "I can't. I'm too scared." I need you. Please covet me, love me, shelter me.

  "It'll be okay. I swear. You don't need me, Ray, or any man really. I honestly believe you of all women can thrive on your own, you just don't believe it yet. Follow your passion. Stick to your vision and create the life you want. You can, ya know. I promise.” He paused, perhaps to give me a chance to respond, but I had no idea what to say to his cheerleader rhetoric. “I'm hanging up now." But he didn't. Finally he said quickly, "I'll see you Wednesday. Bye." Lee disconnected.

  I held the phone trying to fight the rising panic that I was now only two months outside of 34 years old, and once again on my own, with no one, alone.

  "If you wish to make a call, please hang up and dial—" I finally hung up with the recorded woman's voice reminding me my connection with Lee was over.

  -

  Chapter 27

  "I just wanted to let you know that Lee isn't coming tonight," I told my sister on the phone the next morning.

  "Why?"

  "I don't think we're gonna make it. I need more than he can offer right now…probably ev
er."

  She sighed heavily. "Whatever. But what I don't get why you keep sabotaging relationships, especially at your age."

  "Carrie, there's a lot you don't know about Lee. He's not what he portrays himself to be."

  "Nobody is, Rachel.” She scoffed, like I was an idiot. “Larry and I think Lee's great. What's so bad about him?"

  Ah, the critical question. Tell the whole truth and it was over with Lee for ever. "Lee's a gambler, like Aaron, mom's first husband. He owes close to half a million in back taxes to the IRS. He went bankrupt five years ago and has no credit, and no savings, but continues to spend money lavishly instead of paying off his debt. He's an obsessive, just like me, except he doesn't control his behavior, virtually ever. So, does Lee still seem like someone I ought to be setting up house with, Carrie?"

  "Aaron Flint was a manic-depressive abuser, which is why mom left him. His gambling was only a small part of his issues. I don't get that Lee is violent or depressive."

  Like my parents, my sister was so convinced I should to be with someone, she didn't really care who or what he was. It was devaluing in the extreme and I got mad. "Lee's a stoner, Carrie, an addict. He's been getting high since he was 12 years old and for the most part uses every day of his life. Is that a good enough reason why I shouldn't be with him?"

  "Oh," she said. "Why didn't you tell me this about him before?"

  "I don't know," I lied. "I thought we'd be able to work it out together, that I could help him grow up." A rising lump in my throat prevented me from continuing.

  "I can't talk to you about this now." Her kids were fighting in the background. I heard dishes clacking and then Larry yelling at the kids to shut up. "I have twenty five people coming here tonight and I'm totally busy right now."

  "Twenty four."

  "Oh yeah. The table is already set for Lee. I'll have to change it, or you can when you get here. Come around 3:00. You can help me finish cooking and we can talk then. Okay?"