I Almost Forgot Myself

for sarah


September, 1990:
As I waited for the number eight Halsted bus, on the corner of Halsted and Armitage, I muttered a curse at it. I had taken that bus every day, twice a day, for over five years now, and I was sick of it. I was in the sometime habit of walking home to Sheridan and Broadway, about two miles away, but I wasn't in the mood this particular night.
After a few minutes, a cab pulls up in front of me and drops off a cute blond guy in a suit. He steps out of the cab, and instead of taking three steps to the curb where I am, he decides to sit down in the street. He stands up and sits down a few times, and I realize he can't stand up by himself, so I slowly walk into the street, and bend over to ask him if he wants my help with the three steps to the curb, and out of the street and away from drivers not on the look out for dudes sitting in the road.
Before I can get out more than a 'hey buddy', he growls at me, and sputters out: get the fuck away from me right now or I'll fucking kill you.
Whoa! ha ha, I laughed, as I threw up my hands. You got it, and I move back to the curb to wait for my bus. If I seriously thought I wouldn't have gotten bitten or worse, I would have helped him anyway.
The cars stopping at the light would either first look out their window at the guy in the street, and then to me, and gave me one of those I can't believe you're just standing there not helping him! looks, or rolled down their window and yelled at me to help him, where I would yell back: you try and see what happens!
No one, however, got out of their car to help.
I started to worry he would be in the way when the bus pulled up, and the bus driver would get mad at me if he had to get up and help the guy out of the street, and not let me on the bus. So I started to mentally and bodily nudge him in the right direction, as you would a bowling ball, whenever he made a wobbly attempt. After a few more tries he finally did it, and stumbled down Armitage I'm sure, to his doom. Or at least to a night in the shrubs.
Speaking of the CTA, I used the newly opened Irving Brown line stop, and saw the wonderful art work adorning the walls. Is it worth an extra quarter a ride? I guess so...

I was so into with John, once upon a time in nineteen-ninety. I loved how he looked at me when we danced together at Berlin, and the way his arms and shoulders moved, and the smile on his face. I was so worried about messing up my relationship with him, I totally messed up my relationship with him.
The first night I met him, in the summer '90, he invited me to the Belmont Rocks the next day to while away a Sunday afternoon with him and his friends. I was so scared, I begged Scot to go with me, which he did. We had a great time, the three of us, for his friends never showed, if they were even supposed to, and I grew more smitten. I watched as he lounged in the grass by the lake in his Calvin Klein boxer briefs, his tanned toes playing with the deep green blades, as we chatted and laughed long into the afternoon.
I could just look at him for hours... I thought to myself.

Gasp! you're wearing underwear out side, Madonna! I said.
Yea, so?

The couple times I went to his place on Michigan Ave, I desperately wanted to, but didn't, go to bed with him.
I think the long string of one night stands I was having that year prevented me from sleeping with him, and because I liked him so much, I wanted to take a slower, different approach.
The last night we were together, in his high rise condo, with the night sky pouring in like a curious voyeur, we were still wrapped in that glorious, fuzzy, rose-tinted haze of a new relationship, with the spell of our desire for each other still potent, seemingly indestructible, fueling us closer together. I felt it hanging in the air, as if we were laying in a room in the Louvre, and saw it on John's face like a drug; I couldn't believe it was desire for me.
I came closer and closer to laying bare my amorous intentions for him, but never did. I watched his desire for me that night fade away; never again was I to see imaginings of me on his face.
As the months went on from that night, I was to often run into John around town, always with a beauty on his arm, and a smile for me, but as the years went on, he had less good cheer, and almost a look of contempt for me, shading his brow.
Maybe he saw on my face what I still held unwavering in my heart for him, and he grew tired of masking his disappointment in me for never sharing that with him.






Doves