When I got out of the Army in 1981, on the way back here to Sacramento from El Paso,I stopped in Phoenix. I remember that I really liked Phoenix. It was so cosmopolitan, especially in comparison to Sacramento. I felt like it had all the glamour of San Francisco...without the stink. I wanted to live there. I had my 1976 gremlin and $185 in my pocket. I looked around for a place to live and couldn't find anything. I looked around for a place to work and couldn't find anything. In 1981 I was a pretty good looking guy. I would often hear people say: "hey, that guy looks just like Chuck Norris." but in Phoenix Arizona I couldn't even get laid at the punk rock bar. After a few days of kicking around town, not finding anything (and I mean absolutely nothing), I decided to return home to Sacramento.
My parents let me move back in, my old girlfriend started to letting me have sex with her again and all my friends were right where I had left them. The joint I left in my stash box was even still there. My little brother did lose my hash pipe which kind of pissed me off, but I was home and everything felt good. Everything was right back to normal. The same old stagnant life that I left.
Living with the parents had its drawbacks. No privacy. I had to be quiet at night. My guests had to be polite. The list went on and on, and these things are serious detractors when you're 21. I was back to banging the gal that I would eventually marry, and we decided to move in together. I asked my dad for enough money to move in to an apartment and he gave it to me. Before I knew it I was living with a gal and we were on our own.
A few months later, with the onset of winter, I got sick. Those of you who know me well, know that I don't fear much. The one thing that has always struck fear into my heart has been illness. You can't see it and you can't kick it's ass. Most of the time, you're completely in its grip before you even know it. I asked the woman I was living with, as I felt the illness enveloping me: "if I get really sick, will you take care of me?" She said she would. Why didn't I know that?
This was the first of a long series of indicators that I did not and should not trust her. In the years that followed she repeatedly reinforced the fact that I should not trust her...but I did. Not so much because I loved her or anything like that. It was more just because she was the one who was there. A pretty sad reason to trust someone, if I do say so myself.
Fast-forward to 1995. That woman was now history and there was a new one in my life. Having realized that you can't fix stupid, I had made a vow to only date highly intelligent women. I think I've stuck to that fairly well through the years. I was living with a cute little size 2 brunette who knew Morse code and advanced mathematics. I was pretty happy with her, but after living together for eight months, she said to me: "all you want is cheap rent and poon-tang." I told her that if that was the way she really felt, then I needed to move. She said that was the way she really felt. So the next day I began looking for a new apartment and I was gone in a week. I left because I knew she did not trust me. Whatever I felt for her didn't matter. If she didn't trust me, this could never work. For the record, I really was in love with her.
Fast-forward to 1998. Another opportunity presented itself. I had met someone in dance class, and it looked like a really fantastic situation. After several months of dating she mentioned to me that she had been looking at a condominium. She was telling me all about it. How nice it was. What a great location. She was going on and on about it. Finally I asked her something, I don't remember how the words came out, but I remember that her response was: "for us to live in." I had no idea she was ready to take our relationship to that level. The fact of the matter is I hadn't even given it any thought, but the moment I heard her say those words they sounded good to me. I didn't need to be convinced. So we moved in together.
Over the next 20 months I came to realize that deep down inside she didn't trust me. She trusted me to be her lover. She trusted me to cook for her and take her on really fantastic dates. She trusted me to provide a strong lead in dance and a soft touch by the fire, but she didn't trust me to not try and overpower her (one of those control issues). The fact of the matter is I don't think she trusted any man in that way, ever.
I also came to realize that I did not trust her. I trusted her to follow my lead and accompany me on a really fantastic date, but sadly I could also trust her to explode with raging anger over the silliest little infractions I made. Our concepts of sexuality were a bit of a mismatch too. Had this one thing not been true we might still be together today. During the time we were together it was as though I could see into her brain, and she was thinking: "Holy Shit! What have I gotten myself into?" If only she could have released her inner slut, everything would have been fine. That was apparently just a little too far "out of the box" for her.
Fast forward to 2004. A good friend of mine was preparing to move to France. The housing market was at its peak and he was selling his house to realize a massive cash windfall. He was going to use this money to live in France and enjoy life...and he did. Before he left I asked him to leave his piano with me. I promised him that I would have it tuned twice a year, polish it every week and learn to play it. I told him it would be fully insured and he could find no finer care for it than leaving it with me. I told him the reason I wanted him to do this was to ensure that he returned and reestablished our friendship. He appreciated the thought, but would not leave his piano with me. Instead, he crammed it into his mother's house where they already had three other pianos. He did not trust me that much. He did however trust me to a lesser extent. He gave me his walking stick. And this was not just any walking stick. It was handmade from some sort of exotic wood. Some kind of tree that rarely grows in the frozen wastelands. The results is a kind of hardwood that is stronger than Rattan. For those of you who don't know it, Rattan is a kind of bamboo that is practically unbreakable. I still have it today.
My friend went to France and lived the life of a Frenchman. Eating French food, drinking French wine and smoking French cigarettes. One day I was sitting at Gonul's J Street café, which is coincidentally around the corner from his mother's house, and he came walking by. He had returned and I didn't even know it. So much for his keepsake maintaining a bond between us. He was deep in the throes of suffering the ravages of emphysema. He could barely breathe to speak. I was saddened by the sight. I made sure he still had my contact information and he went on his way. Months passed and I never called...now afraid to hear that he has died, I still don't call. I won't even call our mutual friends for the same reason.
Reflections on trust. I think that's enough for today. Tomorrow will be my last posting on the subject of friends.
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