Zing went the strings…
Yesterday I got a ride to Auburn to visit Jeffrey. My ride was visiting someone else and neither of us had a deadline back in town, so I got to visit with Jeffrey alone for over four hours. In the four years he’s been in prison, it’s the first time we’ve visited without a third or fourth person at the table.
It also seems that we have issues every winter. This year, he became concerned, worried, hurt and finally upset because I’d fallen off in writing to him. I thought he was angry with me for something else. Settling that was the entire purpose of this particular trip and we got it settled in the first five minutes leaving four hours for pleasant conversation. (He was concerned for me and worried that bad things, or worse, The Bad Thing, had befallen me.)
Anyway, when you have nothing to do other than talk for four hours, and nearly no distractions, you can cover a lot of ground. It was sweet that one of his concerns was that maybe Web-Boy had broken my heart.
I can’t say for sure whether he did or not because I’ve never really fallen out of love with anyone I’ve ever fallen in love with. Lust passes for me. The next pretty face or nice ass that wanders by, and I’m pretty much over it.
But when I make a connection with someone, and those feelings spill over into amorous areas, well, that never really goes away. It changes, mellows with age I guess, but I still have strong feelings for every man I’ve ever loved. And Web-Boy falls into that category (only without the benefit of time to mellow things.)
Well, I explained to Jeffrey that the last time we talked was December 17, the night before he went to Long Island for the holidays. I phoned on the Thursday after New Years, caught him in a meeting and he promised to call back “in a few minutes.”
I phoned and got voice-mail the following Sunday. That message wasn’t returned, so I did the same two weeks later. (I didn’t want to seem too pushy, you know? He’s pretty skittish.) Same result.
I’ve spent most of the year thus far in some part of letting go. First of the fantasies of building a life together, then of hopes, then of guilt over who knows what I had or hadn’t done.
Shortly after we met, I remember asking the Universe to help me accept whatever it was going to be, even if it wasn’t going to be anything more than a learning experience.
Trouble is, without knowing what happened, it’s difficult to learn any lessons from it.
Jeffrey agreed with this yesterday and said, “Call and keep calling until you have some answers.” After I got home from the meeting tonight, I did.
“Hello?”
“Hi [Web-Boy], it’s Bruce.”
“Bruce! I don’t believe it. I was going to call you today.”
Missing the opportunity to ask why he didn’t, “Yeah? What’s up?”
“I’m coming home this weekend.”
Home! He still refers to Rochester as home! And he’s coming home! This wasn’t going anything like any of the scenarios I’d rehearsed. Worse, one or both of our cell phones began breaking up at this point.
“Hello?” says he.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“You know, I’m still in New York.”
“Well I kinda figured that. You been well?”
“Yeah, pretty good. How about you?”
“Remember that new medication they put me on?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s working out pretty good. I’m able to work, and even better, I’m able to send out bills.”
“Ugh. Billing. I hate billing. I don’t know why I procrastinate so much on billing.”
“Well, think about it tomorrow instead.” The joke is apparently lost in the static.
“Listen, I’m at a dinner party right now, so I can’t talk,” background sounds confirm this, “but I’ll call you when I get in.”
“That’s cool. I’m working tomorrow, but I’ll be around all day Sunday.”
“I probably won’t be leaving until Sunday afternoon. And don’t tell me to have a safe trip! I just got my car back on Wednesday.” This, a reference to the last time he was driving home and I told him to be careful that it was icing up here. Only a couple of hours later is when the Mercedes kissed the guardrail on the Thruway.
“Okay. Drive wicked fast and stay to the left.”
“Always.”
“And call me when you get in. We’ll go to dinner at Venuto’s,” his favorite restaurant.
“Deal.”
And zing went the strings of my heart.
