!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
Visiting Mike in Colorado, and creating his 21st birthday card shifted my internal compass. In January and February, as I tentatively explored what being with another man might feel like, my own future had become my True North. Dreams of independence crystallized, as I sought active engagement with the problems of the world, and a life devoted to helping young children and their families. Then ten days with Mike, together in that safe and happy isolation we so easily fell into, spun the needle wildly. I felt his pull, the pull of us once more, and poured that through my pen into an accompanying letter.
“…We are just so good together, Mike, you raise me up. We can’t keep it up, not across the country, not forever. But for now, I want to be us again. Are you coming back, to get your diploma? Let me know…”
He called the night after the lifts closed, Patriots’ Day, a holiday only in Massachusetts. I’d hung out at Wellesley, along with Leslie and Marcia, trying to persuade the college girls there not to be so flirty with all the runners trotting by in the marathon. In the end, we got in the spirit ourselves, handing out water cups and cheering the lean asthenic men as they tortured uphill through the campus.
“Janie?” he rasped. “I don’t feel so good. Last night, I had to sit in front of the window, just shivering and sweating. I put on my sister’s cheerleader cape, that didn’t do any good. It’s back again. I wish you were here, make me better.”
“They said a flu’s been going around. You must have caught it. When are you coming back?”
“I’ll be home the end of this week…” He stopped, coughed, caught his breath, and weakly, went on, “…end of the week, get the car fixed up, then drive out to W first week in May.”
We both stayed quiet for a while. I was feeling, He should be here, I could have him here with me. I was thinking, That’s not a good idea, he’ll have nothing to do, I’ll have to study, I might get sucked into his world again, the one I needed to escape.
His breathing sounded heavy, labored, as if even a whisper would be too much. I said, “They’re talking about another strike here, on the 15th. The Moratorium against the war wants to shut down every campus in the country, do it every month until Nixon finally gets us out.” Still I hesitated, until, finally, my heart won the struggle with my mind. I asked, “Are you coming back to get your diploma? You said something about trying to get a job in LA.”
Weakly, Mike replied, “They didn’t have anything, not for someone in college, Maybe later, when I’m actually in school there.”
“So are you going to come back here, or not?”
“Yeah,” was all he could manage before a coughing fit overcame him, followed by the sound of shivering, a susurration through his lips and teeth.
Deep in my head, I heard a voice urging, Don’t do it! But instead, I said, “You could stay up here with me, in May, then go down to W for Commencement.” I wondered why that came out. I went on, “We can be us, together, one more time. I don’t know how long, I don’t know about the summer, but I’m better with you than without you, especially now, it’s getting scary, and I have to…” I stopped, feeling my own body start to shiver.
“OK…OK, I’ll do that. Thanks. See you then. Have fun.”
A week later, Howard and Bev were sitting by her little black and white TV when I came in the apartment.
“God-damn him!” Howard cursed. Seeing my startled look, he announced, “Cambodia! The evil bastard’s now bombing Cambodia!”
“I thought he said he was going to end it,” I asked rhetorically.
“No way he gets away with this. We have to shut the country down!” he almost hollered.
All weekend, students gathered spontaneously in the yard. On Sunday, we marched to the Square, then across the river, joining throngs from MIT, Boston University, everywhere, it seemed. Thousands of us, drawing in shoppers along the way, overflowed the sidewalks onto Commonwealth, finally spilling through the Garden into the Commons. People talked of another march down in Washington the next week.
The day, classes still disrupted, it seemed the entire Harvard community – workers, students, faculty, even the administration – broiled in anger. Early in the afternoon, word began to filter within the crowd, that National Guardsmen had killed some kids at Kent State. Since I was from Ohio, everyone assumed I knew all about the place. I’d never heard of it before.
The deaths had a chilling effect. I sat with Jeanne, Marcia, and Bev that evening, numb in front of the TV. We talked about the march to Washington.
“Are you going this time, Janie?” Jeanne asked. “You went before, last fall.”
I shook my head. “That did a lot of good, now, didn’t it?” I said sarcastically. “Besides, Mike’s coming this Thursday.”
“What!” Bev erupted. “I thought that was over! What are you thinking, letting him come back here?”
“I’m not thinking,” I admitted. “For one thing, he’s got nowhere to go.”
“And…?”
“And, yeah, I don’t see why I can’t enjoy him, while I still can.”
“You think that’s fair to him?” Jeanne questioned.
“He doesn’t seem to mind,” I responded quietly.
Three days later, there he was, with a little blue Dodge Dart now, still with bucket seats. “Not as snazzy as my Lancer,” he noted. That Friday was the last day of classes, with the two-week reading period to follow. If I kept my grades where they were, I had a good chance of ending up the next year Magna cum Laude, which, as my mother might say, would look good on my resumé. My frenzied studies, and Mike’s apparent dislocation after six months of nomadic life, had us both walking on eggshells around each other in the cramped apartment. After about ten days of this, with Mike out on his usual one hour afternoon walk to “get some air”, I sneaked a look at his journal, finding the latest entry, Monday, May 18, 1970:
…Before coming back here to Janie, my letters to her, which of necessity are much more sketchy and less organized than this trash, skipped around from politics to weather, to Janie, and me, and so on. What occupies me now? This is not intended to be a repository of day dreams, or might have beens, or punctured romantic illusions. What it can be, and should do for me, is become the permanent remains of past and immediate concerns and events surrounding us.
Although the present moment doesn’t really qualify as a vantage point, or lend itself to stopping the action and replaying it, some scenes in slow motion, others skipped entirely. Rather, Now is like the middle of the sudden drop on a roller coaster – I know that ahead lies a manageable, spine-tingling, fun and frantic ride, and I’ll love it all when it’s over. But at the moment, my heart is two feet above my head, my stomach’s inside out, and total blackout is much preferred to continuation of the ride.
Janie lies asleep now, resting on her bed. She sleeps a lot lately; whether from lethargy or actual exhaustion, I don’t know. A bit of both I’m sure. But I don’t wake her up anymore. In her mind, I have disorganized her enough up to now, and I should just leave her alone when she wants it. She is so ambiguous in her feelings about me. I brought her to Aspen from Denver, and we were very glad to be together, glad to sleep and rest, and nest next to her body. And we walked and skied, and cooked, and sulked, and loved. And led our quiet, almost silent life together. I didn’t try then, but now I do, try to talk to, with, at, about her, and to have fun, to make at least some moments enjoyable. We still like it when each other smiles.
I want her with me, but all of our past has at last taught me how to accept the tyranny of our individual wishes for and paths of independence. She must finish here, I must become a doctor in Los Angeles. What would the summer have done for us anyway? Our plans would have prolonged the period of waiting. I can still imagine us spending our lives together, once everything about us is settled. She loves me, and I love her, and that’s the type of affection, respect and secret longing that will never really have an end.
I, as usual, am far more willing to accept our present cramped living quarters, not to be oppressed by our continual time together. Or is this only a long, protracted weekend?…
This was followed by a birthday poem
Sarah
and your hair;
Your footprints trace a glowing moment in my memory.
Lightly stepping, traipsing through a sweetened patch of
city,
your ears close out the hurried sounds,
as you smell and dream the river.
At last you’re living twenty-one,
at last we mark
the region of the clock that goes around
at first
then sweeps back again.
You stop, track back, and try to live each year as different
from the rest.
One year
is all you’ve known me, one year
is all you ever will.
Each year, in time, becomes the last,
is drowned in past,
always only one before.
They all emerge as one, these years,
and you know two;
the one you live
and the one you’ve left, as
All your years have gone before.
But Sarah –
Janie –
Don’t forget to live within the years you’ve lived before,
the years I’ve given, taken love,
and
Grown
with you,
to grow again.
I hear you say (I say to me)
“My life is lived from me – I’m the one who celebrates
Today.”
But celebrate with me,
as I celebrate my life
with you,
no matter how you hurt me.
5-11-70
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