It was 92 degrees in LA on Saturday, the hottest since I got here. It was a warm, dry pleasant heat. A perfect beach day. I was hung over from a half bottle of wine. I considered leaving my neighborhood. It was a forced consideration. I decided to go to Venice where my business partner lives. A guy I met at a high school alumni event and with whom I started writing music and had considered dating lives there too.
On low battery, I went through the routine of getting my gray Prius (now scratched in the front and missing a hubcap) out of the garage and re-padlocking the door. I drove 55 minutes to Venice Beach, where I had a picture of a pin drop sent to me. My music friend who looks like Kurt Cobain was at home, unable to really muster up energy to meet me but asked me to stop by. Or to go to the part of the beach right in front of his building. Always putting in most of the effort can be exhausting.
Discombobulated, I lost my shoes in the sand and wandered trying to find the volleyball courts and trying to figure out where the picture of the pindrop was. I felt like I was in another nebula. I asked my music friend to come find me. “Walk north and let me know when you get to Brooks Court, and I’ll come out.” I had been walking for 45 minutes or more on the beach feeling lost. “Can you please come find me? Please?!” I asked. “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Yes, I need shoes. I lost my shoes.” I sent him a real pin drop with GPS. He met me. I cried a little because I had been feeling sad in general that day, and he gave me flip flops. We found the rest of the group. I sat in mostly silence on a sarong acquired in Bali. Staring up at the sky wondering how I could think myself into a better emotional state.
Eventually, we left and went to the musician’s house. I rejected his advances but felt comfortable enough to shed a few tears and say some truthful words about my state of being.
I explained why I had been feeling kind of bummed that day and followed with, “I think I have a hard time loving myself.”
“I know, ” he responded.
“How do you know?”
“I know. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. I love you,” he said.
“Want to hear a crazy story that will make you feel better?” he continued.
“Uhhhh…I don’t know.” I looked around at the room and floor, which was speckled with a maelstrom of “stuff” – clothes, CDs, books, and other mementos from the 90s all over every inch of surface area.
He told me about an ex-girlfriend who was sending him death threats. He had gone to the police station earlier that day to file a report. He had two restraining orders against her. I didn’t really feel like hearing about this or listening to the voicemails or seeing the emails. In one email, she had pasted some photo of her sister and him together, accusing him of seeing her. I just stared and listened blankly, not saying a word and considering whether I should tell him to cease and desist.
A few minutes later, his roommate said, “Hey, you have a visitor.”
He left and came back. “It’s her. It’s that crazy girl.” I heard her screaming about her sister Crystal and all sorts of other disturbing things. He called the police and asked me to be a witness. I said I would do it but that I didn’t want to sign anything or get involved. This whole process probably took about 45 minutes, most of it with her screaming at the front of the house and then at the back. She left several more voicemails.
The police came. She was arrested. He gave me a sweatshirt. I put on his flip flops. He talked about how his attraction for me had magnified since I had been there in his hour of need. I wasn’t sure what to say except the words “goodbye” over and over again in my head as we walked 15 minutes to my car.
“I love you. Do you want food? I’m ordering from this Mexican place. Shit, it’s about to close. You could drive me. Let me get you some dinner. You can take with you.”
“Goodbye,” I said, this time out loud.