Chariots on the Highway

by Limor Moyal

  “I'm confused, Mike, I'm not sure I know what love is, so I can’t know if that’s what I feel toward him. Of course I care about him, of course he’s important to me, but other than that I don’t know anything.”

  “Are you sexually attracted to him?” asked Mike very directly, as if it was a question that was easy to answer.

  “I think I am, if you ask my shower wall it’ll definitely say yes.

  I always want to touch him, I think he’s the most attractive, most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and sometimes I can barely hold myself back from touching him, but when I think about actual sex, about penetration… I don’t know, Mike, it just doesn’t compute.”

  “I assume that has something to do with the education you got, and the norms you grew up with, more than the issue itself. As I see it, sex is sex. Doesn’t matter who you have it with.

  It’s a shared goal and everything else is just technicality. The main thing here is that you say ‘yes’ to being attracted to him. The idea of you two getting intimate doesn’t repulse you at all, but you’re afraid of the mechanics. Am I right?”

  Dan thought for a moment before answering, “Yes, I think you described it quite accurately.

  So what does that mean, doc? That at the age of thirty-four, suddenly and miraculously I turned gay? That all of a sudden in my late age I'm coming out of the closet, and for thirty-four years I haven’t noticed I'm attracted to men? If that’s the case, then I guess I deserve the title 'the idiot of decade'.”

  Mike laughed, “You’re not coming out of the closet, and I don’t think you even knew there was a closet! You were in ‘Narnia’ married to the ‘Ice Queen’, without knowing there’s a world outside of your normal. About the question ‘Did you not notice you were attracted to men?’, let me ask you, Dan, have you ever been attracted to a man?”

  Dan didn’t think before answering, “Never, but not to women too much either, to remind you. The graphic thought of two men fucking never bothered me, but it never excited me either. That’s also true about two women having sex, or a man and a woman, you know this whole thing is messed up with me!”

  “Okay, I wouldn’t use the words ‘messed up’, ‘confused’ maybe.

  Let me ask you another question: Now, are you attracted to other men besides Tom?”

  “NO!” Dan said emphatically, almost angered by the suggestion.

  “Not that I'm a big expert on human sexuality. People have doctorates in that, but, Dan, you need to understand, that human sexuality isn’t black and white, it’s not even shades of grey. It comes with a whole spectrum of colors.

  Our sexuality is composed of many different levels, which intertwine with each other and make each one of us up differently, unique, almost like a fingerprint. It’s not only about attraction to men or women or both, it’s how a man defines his gender, compared to his ‘birth gender’, our ability to have sexual relations with one of the sexes, or fall in love with one of the sexes, that's two different things by the way, and it only gets more complex.

  So, no, I don’t think you were gay for thirty-four years and realized it all of a sudden, I think you’ve always known there’s something different about you in the sex department, and you could never put your finger on exactly what was different, and I simply think that you’re pan-sexual.”

  “What? That one I haven’t heard yet! Explain,” Dan was curious to listen, maybe finally he could understand himself.

  “Pansexual, it’s a less known expression for ‘gender-blind’ that refers to people being attracted to other people based on intellectual, personal attraction, which evolves into a sexual attraction. Regardless of the person's gender. In other words Dan, you fall in love with someone because of who they are and what they represents to you, and what they make you feel, and it doesn’t matter if they’re male or female.”

  Dan smiled, “Wow, I feel like a superhero or something, like a freak of nature. At least it can explain why I wasn’t really in love with anyone until today, other than Tom I mean.

  There’s something about my connection with him that’s just so strong, Mike. It’s not only that I love him because of who he is, he’s an amazing person, smart, funny and so beautiful it’s hard to describe.

  But it’s also that I love myself when I'm with him, I'm happy to be the Dan that I become when I'm with him. He makes me see myself in a way that no one else can, and it’s addicting. I know it might sound narcissistic, but, eventually, it’s a mix of things that are all pointing to him.”

  They both went quiet for a moment to take in the revelation.

  “What’s love Mike?”

  “The million dollar question, it’s almost as hard to answer as if you’d ask me what death is, but only almost, because love I think I can explain.

  According to the biological concept, it's a cocktail of hormones in our brain that causes the physical reaction, the need of a sexual touch. It’s also Dopamine which is the hormone that’s responsible for us feeling ‘high’, and the unique excitement goes hand in hand with being in love.

  In psychology there are a lot of explanations about this, but one that I especially like and tend to accept as the most accurate, and that is also connecting to what you explained about what you’re feeling when you near Tom, it’s a concept called ‘self-expansion.’ According to this concept we are being attached to someone who helps us experience the world in a more complete way. Sometimes because that person has opposite qualities to ours and therefore complements our own. This interaction amplifies our ability to experience things, it’s similar to what you described to me with Tom, that you feel like a better Dan when you’re with him,” Mike stopped for a moment.

  “I have to tell you, Mike, it really doesn’t sound romantic when you put it like this, more like a description of a mental illness. Love is one of the noblest emotions in the world, but I guess it makes sense to see it as craziness.”

  “There are people who’ll agree with you that falling in love is a mental illness,” smiled Mike, “I'm not one of them, by the way. All the biological and psychological concepts, they’re all true; each one of them offers one angle for a complex phenomenon that has many levels to it and might be the strongest a man can experience in his life.

  It’s very shallow to try and analyze it without seeing the whole picture. I can offer you my personal view - you won’t find it in psychiatry books, but that doesn’t make it any less true,” Mike smiled and continued, “In my opinion love is a vital need no less than breathing and nourishment, maybe you can live without it, but you live in misery and loneliness, and that’s not really a life. Other than extreme cases, most of us need coupling. I'm not talking about the sexual or biological aspect of relationships for reproduction, or even the pleasure, I'm talking about the need for a significant other.

  I think we all need a relationship with someone that will be the most significant and important being in our lives, not based of genetics, such as parents, children and family members, but from somewhere else that I define as love.

  What it means, practically, is that the same significant other will be your number one, and you for him. He’ll be the first person you think about when something happens to you, he’ll be the first person you want next to you in every possible situation, he’ll be the first person you want to share experiences with, to share a life with. The first person to stand by you in times of trouble, often while giving up his own comfort and needs. Knowing he’s there gives meaning to your life and gives you power and self-worth that no other relationship can give you.

  Our parents die, our children grow up and leave, but the significant other is always there with you and you with him.

  The sex is the physical expression of that relationship, it’s an animalistic way, if you will, to show closeness to one another and give mutual pleasure.”

  Dan thought of all of Mike’s definitions and saw Tom’s figure in front of him, suddenly it was all so clear to him.

  “I understand, Mike, I'd
like to be all of that to him. I'd like for him to be all of that to me… I know he’s willing to, he said it explicitly. I just need to find a way to get over two obstacles. The first one being how do I convince him to give it a chance? In the meantime he’s avoiding me and is determined I'm straight and can’t change. The second obstacle is how do I get around my hesitance with the physical aspects?”

  “I think it’ll actually be easier than you think, if you don’t think about it too much. Let things happen on their own, you just might surprise yourself,” Mike summed up.

  16 Layers of Pain

  On the way back to the office, Dan pondered on everything he had talked about with Mike, he felt much better, and the melancholy of the past days changed to relief.

  The screaming inside his head diminished, and the world around him got its color back.

  He smiled to himself and used the minutes at the red traffic light to close his eyes and enjoy the sun on his face. The phone in the Jeep rang and broke the moment, he saw the name ‘Sharron’ on the screen.

  “Yes, Sharron!”

  “Dan, where are you?” she sounded stressed.

  “On the way to the office. Why? What's up?” he thought about Tom and his heart started pounding loudly.

  “I don’t know, Gideon’s here waiting in your office, and he doesn’t want to tell me what it’s about. He’s just asking when you’ll be here and asked me to notify you that he’s waiting.”

  Dan tried to remember if he’s set a meeting or something with Gideon, but he was quite sure he hadn’t, and in fact, when he thought about it, he remembered that they hadn’t talked since the Lena ordeal. Maybe something had happened to Adam, he thought, and was terrified at the idea.

  “Tell him I'm on my way!” he ended the call and stepped on the gas.

  Gideon’s expression spelled bad news, he didn’t say a word and waited for Dan to sit down.

  Dan, on the other hand, understood that whatever it was that Gideon wanted to tell him, called for sitting down.

  He got comfortable in his chair, looked at Gideon and said, “What happened?”

  “Flora's dead,” he stated quickly, as if it would make it less painful.

  Dan felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach, felt how the sorrow and longing are spreading inside him. He didn’t say anything, and let the aching wave wash over him, seep into his consciousness, but then Gideon continued, “I got an email today at 08:00 sharp. She arranged it so I’d get her mail this morning.” Gideon took a wrinkled piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, and a pair of glasses. He opened the letter and put his glasses on the tip of his nose, looking at Dan for a moment to see if he was okay. He wasn’t! The shock and sorrow joined together to a form a depressed look, which had become his norm the last couple of weeks.

  “You’re okay, Dan, I'm sorry you had to find out like this, but the truth is I'm shocked just as much as you are, and I've had a rough morning. I wanted to update you as soon as possible.”

  Dan cleared his throat, as if to see if his vocal cords were still working, before saying to Gideon, “I'm shocked, of course, I didn’t see it coming, I admit! She was abroad, I know because I heard the answering machine when I tried reaching her last week. But I had no idea things were so bad, and that she was so close to the end.”

  “Well, that’s the thing, she wasn’t. She actually rushed the end. Let me read you the letter, you’ll understand everything,” Dan was ever more shocked when he found out Flora did this to herself, and into the riot going on inside his head, came along a weak, dim sound of anger and bitterness. Gideon started reading.

  “Hi Gideon,

  When you read these lines, I will no longer be alive.. I want to hope I'm in a meadow, full of Begonias and butterflies and something good to smoke up. But I'm not optimistic about the odds.

  I've decided to end my life, mostly because I was finished with the preparations and arrangements for the goodbyes. I wanted to end it quickly; to avoid a slow and painful death.

  Pain was never my thing.

  Given that you’re my lawyer, and a dear friend of David, I've decided that you’ll have to be the one to deal with the logistics of my death.

  Actually, I haven’t left you too much work to do, I've taken care of most things on my own.

  The keys to the house I left you under the Begonia plant on the right side of the entrance door. The alarm is off. I'm in the bedroom, in bed, sleeping my eternal sleep.

  Don’t worry yourself about the ‘how’, I've made myself a cocktail that will do me good, make me sleep and send me above without feeling a thing.

  You know, Gideon, how much I was careful not to let religion intervene with my life. Me and the ‘one upstairs’ had an agreement that we don’t interfere with each other’s lives.

  That’s the reason I don’t want religion to be involved in my death either. The funeral will be held today at 17:00 in Revadim cemetery, it’s a non-religious cemetery around the Hasharon area.

  The address will be at the end of the email together with an ambulance number to pick me up here.

  I've arranged everything with them, I chose a song, I designed a nice festive headstone. I've always thought that headstones are so gloomy, instead of celebrating the uniqueness of the one laying in the ground, all headstones are so boring and similar.

  It’s so depressing!

  I went ahead and arranged everything with the burial company, of course I didn’t mention it’s my funeral, I figured I'd get a visit from the mental health department if they’d known they were talking to the deceased and taking her credit card details. It amused me to no end.

  Anyway, I want the people in the funeral to be only the ones I've mentioned in the attached list. They’re the only ones I care about, I'll spare the gas money and the embarrassment from all my other friends.

  About the assets I left behind:

  I'm leaving the house to Dan, it was his to begin with, I was simply a guest. I've also left him a jewelry box that belonged to his mother. David hid it in the safe all those years.

  That of course belongs to him anyway, but I left something from me inside as well.

  The money that I've arranged neatly in the bank I'm donating to the Cancer Association.

  I've transferred you a service fee for the legal services and a bonus for forcing you to deal with all of this. I hope you won’t resent me for it.

  I want to donate all of the clothes and houseware to the needy.

  I'm interested in donating my paintings equally between the oncology departments in the country, just to decorate the walls. I want to leave behind me a little joy, especially to those who need it so much, in moments of despair.

  To Tom I left my antique chess board under the T.V cabinet…”

  Gideon stopped for a moment and took off his reading glasses. He quickly looked at Dan trying to get an impression of what was going on with him. He encountered a stunned, aching face, and tearful eyes. He wasn’t surprised, the emotions reflecting off of Dan’s face weren’t far from his own. He’d always loved Flora, ever since David married her.

  But he’d loved her a little too much, and it had tortured him all those years. When David passed he waited for a year and a half, waited for the sorrow to pass, for the dust to settle, before confessing his love to her. She’d politely declined him, with a friendly hug. She’d said that now she was her own woman, and that she didn’t want to give herself to anyone else. He understood her, but it only made him love her even more. He knew how to hide the disappointment, he knew how to wear a serious look on his face, he was a lawyer after all, but he was raging inside.

  Seeing her beautiful sleeping body, lying in a flowery dress, tore him apart.

  She waited for him in bed, beautiful, and left a key under the plant.

  If he hadn’t known her so well, it could have been perceived as mocking.

  But Flora didn’t have an ounce of evil or contempt. He knew her, and assumed that that was her way to give him something pe
rsonal, only for him.

  “She goes on specifying who she wants to give her things to, there’s a list I'll spare you, and then an invitation list with phone numbers. I'll deal with it after I leave here.

  I wanted to give you the news personally,” Gideon stopped and waited for a response from Dan.

  Dan rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath and said, “It’s weird, you know?”

  “What’s weird?” Gideon wondered, and thought, What’s not weird about this situation?

  “It’s weird that Mom and Dad are buried in Yarkonim Cemetery, and Flora in some left-winged hippy shit-hole, it’s weird!”

  Gideon smiled in sadness, “There is a reason for that!”

  “And what’s the reason?” asked Dan.

  “You’re the reason!”

  “Me? What do I have to do with this?” asked Dan, almost angry, his nerves were so taut that it didn’t require a lot to snap him completely off balance, and Gideon felt that and took no offence from the response.

  “Well, when your mom died, your dad bought a joint burial plot in the Yarkonim Cemetery, with a clear intent to be buried next to his wife.

  He loved your mother a lot, I'm sure you know that. So, at the time, he didn’t dream of falling in love and getting married again and I'm pretty sure he wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t for Flora.

  But he met her, and she blinded him with her joy and colorfulness, and the rest is history.

  When he got sick, the issue about the burial came up again, he told me that he told Flora that he’ll buy a joint burial plot for both of them, next to your mom, because he didn’t want to let Flora feel as if she’s number two to your mom.

  Flora completely refused and said that your mom and dad need to be buried together, to let you come visit them and feel connected with them, the two people who gave life to you.”

  If Dan had thought that Flora was unusual, now he knew she was one of a kind. Not that he gave a shit for the geographical placement of dead bodies. He couldn’t care less as to where and next to whom he’d be put, but Flora, Flora was selfless, full of love and sometimes thought of the feelings of others before thinking of her own. He softened from the thought, but then the anger, frustration and the sorrow seeped in again and colored his vision with red and black, because she had thought of herself, otherwise, why would she have quit? Why did she kill herself? Why did she give up? Why didn’t she fight? Why did she leave him? Why did she leave him?