In Search of... A Circus Gig?
The plan was to sleep from 8:00pm til 2:00am, hop in the shower, drag the mattress and box spring her mother bought us when we got married to the trash, pack the Prius with my clothes and computer, and be on the road out of Vegas by 4:00am.
I couldn't sleep. I lay there staring at the ceiling for twenty minutes.
I need to leave right now.
So, I hit the road by 9:30pm and drove out of the city limits of Sin City. For the first hour or so, I was hit with waves of almost uncontrollable sobbing. I suppose it's a testament to my driving focus because hurtling down a highway in Nevada and then Utah at night while blubbering like a hurricane victim who lost everything is no mean feat. A mixture of relief, loss, and a deep sadness came over me and subsided like a tidal wave.
The second hour (and let me tell you, driving in Utah at night is like flying in outer space) I talked to myself and held a fictional conversation with my ex-wife. Earlier in the day she had suggested she wanted to see me one last time before I split to say goodbye and I told her I'd rather not. But I started to feel like I needed some sense of closure, a shutting of the Book of Us, before I could truly get the hell outta Dodge.
Should I call her? What if she is with her boyfriend? What if she's... working? Why? What do I hope I'd get out of a final conversation anyway?
Into the third hour, I called. She answered. I explained that while I didn't want to say goodbye in person (where the power clearly lay with her because I was still struggling with what she'd done versus the fact that still loved a version of her) I thought some closure on my terms (shuttling away at 80 miles per hour) might have some merit.
She asked "Are you okay?"
I paused. "I don't know. I watched some show recently and one of the characters, at the end of rope with drug addiction, told his sister that he didn't want to die but he didn't really want to live, either. I'm in that neighborhood. I'm about 60% sure I'll be fine but I genuinely don't know."
We determined that when she said the words "I love you" and I say them, we mean very different things. We got caught in an old semantic argument about her disdain for my use of the phrase "It is what it is." Her regrets were self serving in that her only expressed regret was that she didn't do more to include me in her 'lifestyle choice'—that if she'd only educated me in the ways of her desire to engage in sex work, maybe she could've kept me.
The only possibly dishonest thing I said was that I wished I had never married her. Dishonest in as much as I didn't actually know if that was true but I suppose I wanted it to be. After an hour or so, we'd said everything we were going to say. I wished her well. "Be careful." I hung up. I did feel better. I'm not much into the psychology of closure and mental wellness (it all feels just a bit too much like astrology or Tarot for me) but it did feel more done.
So, I drove. I listened to my Leaving Las Vegas playlist I'd created over the past week. All Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, and hair metal songs from the 80s. I went over every word said from the call. I wrote Farewell to Las Vegas a few days before and since had wrestled with whether I should publish it. Was I simply being vindictive, outing her secret? I determined that I needed to shine that light on my specific circumstances for two reasons. The first was that was the only way I could release its power over me. Secrets have a way of weighing you down and I needed to shed those chains. The second was that, with the publication, whether she got angry or sad, declared to her and to myself that this was over. No going back. No justification for blinding myself to reality any longer.
I drove for twenty-two hours with three quick twenty minute road nap stops. I bought beef jerky. A sandwich. Coffee. I listened to podcasts. Once in a while, I'd burst into tears but the heat of them lessened each time.
As I travelled into Wichita it hit me. Oh. This is why I left here forty years ago. But as soon as I pulled up to my folks' house, I felt a sense of ease and safety I hadn't felt in four months. Yes, I am here because they need me. My pops is increasingly ill and mom needs some assistance. I have what I'd call a dorm room designed by Martha Stewart on the second floor but it's home and instead of 25-feet, my ex-wife is 1300 miles away. No chance of accidentally walking past her apartment and being serenaded by the sounds of her 'in congress.'
My poor family has to put up with my random sobbing. I have no gauge on when or why it happens. I'm talking to mom about something on the news and suddenly the dam bursts and I'm weeping. Her little white dog, Buddy Ricardo, comes up and licks my face—BOOM! A pathetic sight of a grown man bawling. As the days pass, I find myself less afflicted with this immediate expressing of grief. I gained about 15 pounds in the four months since she moved out so mom and I joined the YMCA gym and I'm back at it. Since I lost the 80 pounds in my early forties, I'm a verified gym rat. I've missed it for the past few months and it feels damn fine to throw around some kettle bells and do some bench presses.
Wednesday night, because I was still getting the moving dust off of my recording rig and because Himmel wanted to give me a break, the ApeCast was he and our friend, John Beardmore. I edited the audio and, of course, they spoke at length about my situation. It's both strange and gratifying hearing about yourself from the unguarded perspective of people who know you in one form or another. These guys wondered aloud that I was basically back to being twenty-five—a huge breakup, moving back in with my parents, a massive transition into the unknown, unlimited possibilities. From that reframe, I get a sense of hope despite my cynical views on women.
As for those views, I don't blame women for this. I blame me in that, if I like a woman, she's almost guaranteed to destroy me. If I think "Hey. She's beautiful and funny and smart. I'd like to get to know her," my experience cements the very real possibility she is A) a sociopath, B) a prostitute, or C) has a cock. Maybe all three. I expect that my next wife (not) will be a serial killer. I'd like to avoid that if I can. It’s a solo ride for me here on out.
Now what?
I’m looking around and David and John may have a point. So many people get stuck—in dead end careers, in cities that suck the life out of them, in stagnant, painful marriages—and I’m the exact opposite of stuck. I’ve become unmoored, set adrift, with no defined direction to sail. I’ve been discarded before I need any replacement parts. Hell, I could join the circus if I wanted to.
How I make money is less important than writing. It seems that my entire artistic trajectory points the compass needle to that. I’m certainly not a great writer but I think I can say that I’m mostly good. Slightly above average. Great will come with more writing. At least, that’s the goal, yes? I'm in a unique position—no kids, no property, no spouse (any longer)—so I do have a certain freedom of choice about how I spend my time and what I'm willing to do to pay the bills. I'm no longer the breadwinner for a couple; I'm merely the breadwinner for the one guy eating bread.
David advised me to be a better human than she who burned down my house and to write great things. I think that's sound advice despite the fact that he was drunk and stoned when he gave it. My sister advices me to take it one day at a time, make no plans, and heal. Also good advice but I'm thinking back and I heal when I have things to do. Something to live for rather than just survival for its own sake. Anyone can survive. I'm looking to live.
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” —Benjamin Button
I hope I have the courage to join the circus.
