Never Forget To Not Remember

The Empire Strikes Back

I'm really not a fan of companies or products appropriating the legacy of 9/11, but I have to admit that this commercial from State Farm -- which aired yesterday and was directed by Spike Lee -- brought me pretty close to tears.

Let's hear it for New York.

Songs That Voices Never Share

A very quick excerpt from my book, Dead Star Twilight -- one that attempts to relate the chaos, fear and overwhelming heartache that permeated New York City in those first hours and days following the 9/11 attack.


September 13th, 2001


I have a song echoing through my head. I know it’s from Moby. I think it’s called My Weakness. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of much of anything at this moment. I’m simply forcing myself to pay attention to what’s happening around me, because I know that someday someone will ask me to describe this and just shaking my head in overwhelmed silence won’t do it all justice—even though it will seem the most appropriate response. I’m surrounded by people. There’s sound everywhere and yet for some reason there’s no sound at all. It’s almost dead quiet to me—as if each individual noise has merged into the other at some sub-atomic level, creating one punishing, dull drone. It’s constant. I want to scream but I already know that it would simply disappear—consumed in the vacuum created by the sudden disappearance of so many lives. This is not the world I know. This is a hole punched in the fabric of reality created by more human suffering than is imaginable.

One particular sound finally slices through the deep thrum. I recognize it immediately and my brain quickly categorizes the possible sources of it. I look up to the sky. As I do, I catch a glimpse of hundreds of other people doing the same, many with looks of fear and confusion on their faces. They’ve heard this sound before—and the last time, it brought with it terror and death. I wasn’t here for that. For me the sound of a jet still qualifies as nothing more than routine. Now, though, it’s the sight that shocks me back to whatever is left of reality: Three fighters, in tight formation. They streak by—the shockwave of sound deafening. For a moment the entire crowd at the corner of 25th Street and Lexington Avenue is stunned into absolute silence. It is an eerie and frightening moment. The jets are visible for only a few seconds. From my perspective on the ground, they appear almost directly overhead, clearing the horizon created by the top of one building—screaming diagonally across the open sky and leaving vapor trails like dark scars—then disappearing behind the top of the giant building on the other side of the street. The sound lingers long after the spectacle that created it has disappeared from view. My mind comprehends it all and finally puts it into impossible words inside my head:

There are fighters flying cover over an American city.

As the artificial thunder of the jets reverberates and retreats through the canyon of structures surrounding the historic National Guard Armory, I stand across the street, taking in the incomprehensible scene playing out all around me. I arrived only a short time ago, taking the PATH train from Hoboken to 33rd, then catching a cab to this location. This is where I’m supposed to meet my crew because this is where hundreds of people have gathered to look for, at best, hope—at least, answers. The Armory at 25th & Lex is the processing area for the families of those still missing less than forty-eight hours after the attack that leveled the World Trade Center. If the Trade Center site itself overwhelms with the sheer size and scope of the recent cataclysm, this place overwhelms with the inescapable anguish caused by it.

I’m moving through the crowd now, trying to push the fragile figures in my path aside as gently as I can. Some are crying loudly. Many are implosively silent, their—figuratively, literally—ashen faces proof enough of their pain. In the confusion, I feel someone grab my shoulder.

“Are you from the TV?”

I spin around and I’m face-to-face with a young Hispanic woman—probably in her early twenties—and an older woman who I immediately assume is her mother. The old woman is shouting something in Spanish. I’m confused over the odd phrasing of the question for a moment, then I realize that yes, I guess I am from the TV.

“As of about an hour ago—yeah,” I answer, noticing that the young woman has reached down and is holding the MSNBC ID dangling from around my neck.

“Can you put us on TV? We’re looking for my husband. He worked in One World Trade,” she says, as the elder suddenly produces a white piece of photocopied paper from somewhere and hands it my way. On it is a dark reproduction of a wedding photo: The woman standing in front of me and the man she’s now trying to find. Above the picture are his name and a telephone number. If I pull my eyes away and look in any direction, I’ll see hundreds of similar fliers being carried by hundreds of different people. The format will be the same: Picture, name and phone number. The desperation will be the same—some say, “please help us,” or “we miss you.” Some will even have the gut-wrenching augmentation, “I love you daddy.” Only the names and faces will be different. People are walking around with these things. They’re taped to walls and public telephones. They’re everywhere—an endless, collective cry for help.

I’ve got my hand on the woman’s shoulder now and I notice I’m shouting above the crowd.

“What’s your name?”

“Alicia.”

“Okay, Alicia, who’s this?” I say, motioning toward the older woman.

“This is my husband’s mother.”

Guess I was wrong.

“Alright, listen to me—” I’m trying to be as authoritative as I can. “I’m gonna get you some help. Come with me.”

She acknowledges and says something to her mother-in-law. What I neglect to tell her of course is that I have no idea how I’m going to get her some help. I just arrived and don’t have the slightest idea where the hell my crew is. As I push through the throng, with the two women in my wake, I’m simply trying to get a handle on the fact that someone actually asked to be put on camera. Normally, news people are looked upon as vultures, and when you see one of them coming, you run like a scared four-year-old. But that was before everything everyone knew to be true was turned upside down by some very pissed-off Arabs with control of four commercial planes. Now as I glance around I pick out dozens of news crews—each with a line of people waiting patiently, fliers in hand, ready to make their pain public in the hope that someone, somewhere can make it stop.

I’m still not spotting my own crew among the crush of journalists, so I reach behind me, grab Alicia’s hand and begin moving off the street and toward the sidewalk along Lexington. Somewhere in the middle of all the chaos, I spot one reporter and photographer who look as if they’ve just finished setting up. So far no one seems to have noticed them. Perfect. I direct the two women toward the reporter. As I get closer, I see that his photographer is wearing an ID around his neck: WWOR—Channel 9 in New York. Locals.

Oh well—beats the Travel Channel, I suppose.

I move Alicia up onto the sidewalk, with her mother-in-law right behind her, and ask them to stand next to the photographer. Hopefully, given the situation, any amount of ass-kissing on my part should be painlessly minimal.

“Hey—can you talk to these two?” I say to the reporter, thumbing over my shoulder. “The young one’s looking for her husband.”

“Her and about a thousand other people here,” he says, forcing a look that he doubtlessly hopes will scream sympathetic nice-guy. Unfortunately, from where I’m standing it comes off more like irritated asshole. “Giuliani’s supposed to come through here in a minute. I’ve got to finish setting-up.”

Okay, look you arrogant prick—talk to these people or I’ll pull that tape out of your camera and smoke it on a piece of tin foil, and believe me, I COULD RIGHT NOW.

“Look, man,” I say, choosing to be sweetness-and-light for the sake of the two women standing nearby. Now I lower my voice—speaking just loud enough for the reporter to hear me above the surrounding noise. “September 11th was their third wedding anniversary. She just had a baby—he’s a month old. He probably doesn’t have a father now.”

I’m not trying to appeal to his humanity. I’m simply piling it on thick—baiting him with the kinds of angles sure to elevate a story from good TV to Emmy-assured TV. He punches his fists into his hips, one hand holding his microphone. He looks off into the distance, craning his neck above the crowd—probably to see if hizzoner is coming.

“Please. They need help,” I say quietly. Now I am appealing to his humanity.

He lets out a loud sigh.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

As he moves them in front of the camera, Alicia gives me a joyless smile and mouths a quiet thank you. It’s not hard to grasp that this will likely be the first of countless times over the next few months that someone else’s searing pain and loss puts my own into perspective. For a moment, everything goes quiet and everyone else disappears. I look at Alicia and return her sad smile, mouthing back a silent good luck.



On a corner, one avenue over from Lexington, I’ve found a relatively calm place to make a cell phone call to my elusive photographer and reporter. I’m appreciating the irony of standing under the awning of an Afghan restaurant, one which chose to close its doors today—probably wisely. A handwritten sign on the door reads: Our hearts and prayers are with our fellow New Yorkers during this terrible tragedy. May God bless us all. As the line rings, I lift my eyes from the sidewalk and look across the street to where a WABC news van is parked, surrounded by the constantly shifting mass of people. The engineer inside the truck has his feet up on the dashboard. He’s asleep.


Download Dead Star Twilight Here

(The physical copy of the book, unfortunately, is still in the proofing stages, so it won't be available for another couple of days.)

A Decade Later: 9/11 in Two Parts

Where were you on the morning of September 11th, 2001?

It's a question you've no doubt heard several times over the last ten years -- regardless of who you are or where you live. It's because the attacks of 9/11 stand as the defining moment of this American generation. I remember where I was all too well, and I remember the days and months that followed because it changed me incalculably, as it did so many people. The events of 9/11 became the focal point of the book I wrote, Dead Star Twilight, and, in a way that even now seems utterly surreal and ironic, may very well have wound up saving me from absolute self-destruction.

Five years ago, I wrote two pieces to mark the anniversary of the single most epochal event in modern American history. Looking back on them now, it's shocking to see how much has changed even since then -- in our country and in my own life. But as is tradition on this day, I'm reposting those pieces -- back to back.

Never forget?

It would be impossible to.


Part I: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times.

I miss the days and months immediately following September 11th, 2001.

Although it may seem incomprehensible to make such a statement, it's a fact that I have no choice but to own up to. In spite of my belief in man's unparalleled ability to consistently make bad situations worse, I honestly never thought that I'd look back on the initial aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in history and quietly pine for that time. Years later, however -- as we mark the anniversary of 9/11 -- I realize with more certainty than ever before that the violence which claimed so many lives on that day, unwittingly and for a short time, created a city, country and world of which I could say that I was proud to be a part.

I admit that I had an often overwhelming front-row seat for the constant display of pain and perseverance by being in New York City following the attack. Covering the story from the area which would in short order become universally known as "Ground Zero," and from the Armory at 25th and Lexington -- the area where families of the victims were sent in an often futile and heartbreaking search for answers about their lost loved ones -- gave me a perspective not everyone else may have had. Still, I'm certain that you didn't need to wade knee-deep in the indescribable human suffering to see that an equally indescribable human spirit was also asserting itself -- and proving to be far more powerful than many believed possible.

In those first months after the attack, a wounded America found its heart and its soul.

We put aside the trivial concerns that divided us -- the inane distractions that casually connected us. We were shown in an excruciating way the true meaning and value of words which up until that point had only been used as disposable ad-campaign hyperbole: heroism, compassion, sacrifice, family, strength, unity -- even love. We saw constant displays of these because after all that we witnessed on that day -- after the hideous destruction caused by a few, and the selfless response of so many -- after the bar for human emotion was raised so high, it was almost as if it was our responsibilty to act in kind. To follow the example set by those who were no longer with us.

We were stripped down to our raw nerve, and in spite of the chaos and terror that caused it, what we found there was beautiful.

The world seemed to follow suit. On September 12th, 2001 -- the morning after the attack -- the headline of France's Le Monde newspaper read "We Are All Americans Now." The crew of a German ship manned the rails when it came alongside an American destroyer -- a show of respect and solidarity. Billions across the planet felt our anguish, believed in the dream that was America, and stood with us.

When we struck back with a mighty fury at those who killed our innocents, our indignation was indeed righteous. Our cause truly was just. We stood together as a country -- political affiliations and personal concerns be damned -- and understood with one mind that this was the way it had to be. We shouted with one voice, "You have unleashed this."

We felt lost, but were comforted in holding on to each other. We were both terrified and fearless. We were powerful in our vulnerability.

It's true that all things are relative, and if the current condition of our country and our world is the yardstick by which we measure the past, then maybe my effusion is somewhat prejudiced. Maybe the past has an unfair advantage. Maybe any past would.

I'm not sure that's the case, though.

Years ago on this day, the world changed -- not forever, as was first forecast, but for a short time.

It's that short time that continues to give me faith in us.

It was during that time, when things were at their worst -- that we were at our best.


Part II: The Revelation Will Be Televised

At 8:46:40am, 87 people are killed instantly.

They are the passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11, which departed out of Boston's Logan International Airport a little more than an hour ago -- at 7:59am to be exact -- only to be hijacked and turned into a flying bomb.

An unknown number of people in the North Tower of the World Trade Center likely die as well, at that same moment -- 8:46:40 -- as they would be unlucky enough to find themselves at the point of impact of this flying bomb.

At 8:46:40am, almost no one outside of the affected area has any idea that the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history has just come to fruition in New York City, and that it's only the beginning.

At that same moment, in a small two-bedroom condo fifteen-hundred miles away, I'm sitting up in bed, thinking about -- well, nothing really.

I stare quietly at the TV set in the corner of my parents' guest bedroom -- maybe not at it so much as through it -- while the Today show drones on and on. This is in no way an endorsement of that program, as anything on the television would provide the same focal-point of worthless distraction, and in fact has for most of the early morning and previous night. MTV2 has supplied me with enough colors and sounds to hold my attention and replace the sleep I've desperately desired, but which has refused to come.

I watched videos throughout the night, while taking in none of them. I listened to the occasional passing car or two outside my window slowly multiply until becoming the steady din of morning traffic. I saw the curtain over that same tiny window begin to glow as the sun came up.

I did anything but sleep.

Heroin addicts fresh out of rehab don't sleep. They can't sleep.

Where I am at 8:46:40am on the morning of September 11th, 2001, is the culmination of a ten-month-long spiral into oblivion. It began in Los Angeles, where I lived with my wife in an impressive two-story apartment on the edge of Beverly Hills. I worked as a television executive. I made six figures. I drove a fast car. I had a life few could complain about -- which made it all the more sadly ironic that in truth, I was frightened, insecure and more than likely clinically depressed. At some point, I began to feel my wife pulling away from me. I began to feel my life ripping apart, even though no one could see the straining in the fabric or the tearing at the seams.

I felt like I was being abanoned by her -- like I was being left behind. I felt completely alone.

So I found something to help me feel warm, comfortable and safe from harm.

What began as an occasional means of self-medication quickly turned into a constant hallucinatory nightmare of homemade pipes, scorched tin-foil, lies, cover-ups, broken promises and the terrified realization that I couldn't wake up, no matter how hard I tried. It drained me of every penny I had. It crushed my already tenuous relationship with my wife. It ate my soul alive.

Finally, at the beginning of August, 2001 -- realizing that I had almost nowhere left to turn and no one left to turn to -- I asked my wife to drive me to the airport, allowed one last painful kiss between us, and got on a plane and came home to Miami. When I arrived, my heartbroken parents picked up their damaged and dying son and drove him to a public rehab facility.

I spent four days in gut-wrenching detox, having my insides liquify and try to escape my body through any and every possible route -- like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

I spent the next month trying to recover from what I'd spent the past nine months doing to my body, mind and soul.

During that time, my wife moved out of our apartment -- leaving me without so much as a glance over her shoulder. During that time I gave up my job -- leaving it without so much as a glance over my shoulder.

The day after I left rehab, my father and I flew back to a haunted Los Angeles. We packed up what little was left of my life, put it into storage and drove my car back to Miami -- back to my parents' small two-bedroom condo.

We arrived five days ago.

I haven't moved since.

Five days ago marked the first day of the rest of my life -- the rest of my life doing absolutely nothing.

I don't eat. I don't sleep. I don't speak. I exist only within the tiny confines of this guest bedroom. I watch TV. I walk a few steps to the bathroom. I don't even think about what to do next. I don't even know where to begin. It's as if I'm nothing but empty space.

I'm not even aware of what Matt Lauer is talking about at 8:46:40am, because I'm not paying the least bit of attention. It's four minutes later, though, at 8:50am, that something breaks my reverie. I blink -- my brain finally seeming to activate as if cued by some mysterious force. Lauer says something about a very big story; he says something about an accident at the World Trade Center. The Today show goes to commercial. In a daze I pick up the remote and switch over one channel to ABC. That's when I see for the first time what happened at 8:46:40am, fifteen-hundred miles away.

I slowly get out of bed and stand -- my jaw going slack. I'm moving before I know it -- throwing open the bedroom door and storming out into the living room. There my mother is staring at the TV; her face is a mask of awe and horror. We begin talking about what's happened; my voice is dry and scratchy from not having been used in days. There's confusion and fascination -- a sense of amazement at what's surely a tragic accident. This thought is still firmly entrenched in my brain when a jet -- United Flight 175 out of Boston -- screams into the live picture for only the briefest moment before disappearing into the other tower. For a split-second there's nothing -- then a massive fireball erupts which splits the building in half in a blossom of orange and black, and a shower of debris.

My brain can't process the image fast enough, and my first thought is, "How could that kind of mistake happen twice?"

After only one more breath -- one more second to allow it all to sink in -- do I realize what's happened.

The next few hours are spent as one with millions across the nation and around the world. I watch in absolute horror as my country is attacked, as people are killed, and as indescribable chaos reigns. I pace maniacally back and forth in front of the TV. I feel like a caged animal. I want to do something. I feel utterly helpless and I want to do something. I want to work. I want to help. I want to get the hell out of here. I want to live. People are dying, and I'm wasting away here. I want to live. I want to make a difference somehow. My life isn't over.

And that's when it hits me.

I have no job. I have no wife. I have nothing.

I have nothing holding me back.

If I stay here, I'll be worse than dead. I'll watch the world fall apart on television. I'll watch the destruction and the sadness -- the heroism and heartbreak -- and I'll feel sorry for myself for my pathetic little losses while so many others try to fight their way back from losses greater than I can ever imagine. I'll sit quietly and helplessly by while an entire country mourns.

It's at that moment that I walk to the phone and place one call -- to a friend of mine who's now an executive producer for NBC in New York. I let him know that I'm going to be in New York and that I'll be available to work if he needs extra help, which I'm almost certain he will. Then I run back to the guest room and begin packing a suitcase.

I'll work if they'll let me. I'll hand out water and food if not. I'll do something. I have no idea where I'm going to stay or how I'll pay for anything, but I have to go. I have to see this for myself.

The next morning I leave before dawn, driving across the new America -- a land eerily quiet, where the shock of what's happened seems to show on the face of each person I meet. I drive through sun and rain, into the night -- occasionally scanning the empty skies with the realization that at no point in my life have I lived in a country where all public air travel was prohibited.

Years ago, I read a book from Clive Barker called The Great and Secret Show. In it, the forces of good and evil battle for supremacy as they always seem to do in fantasy novels. However, one moment in the story now comes back to me and seems to have an astonishing relevance. When the character of Jaffe finally masters the ability to control time and space -- what Barker calls "The Art" -- he grabs reality and literally tears a hole in it. At the moment this happens, Barker explains that all around the world people stop; they get out of their cars or they wake up or they generally freeze in their tracks. They do this because, no matter where they are, they know that something has changed. They know that something is wrong, even if they can't explain what it is.

This is what it feels like in the days following September 11th, 2001: Something is wrong. Everything is wrong.

A hole has been torn in the fabric of reality.

That hole -- the largest of three anyway -- is in New York City.

At some point, as I speed up the highway to this destination, my cell phone rings. I answer it and am told by the woman on the other end of the line that she's from NBC, and that my friend needs me to report to work as quickly as possible.

She explains where I need to go. She sets me up with a hotel room. She wishes me luck and says goodbye.

I pull over and close my eyes -- taking deep breaths.

I made a leap of faith, and found a place to land.

There isn't a writer or a poet alive who could properly describe or explain the next few months. I lived out of a hotel. I worked inhuman hours at the center of the most agonizing single event in American history. I held a woman in my arms as she realized her husband was dead -- and I cried with her because although my own marriage was over and I missed my wife terribly, I couldn't even begin to imagine her suffering -- and through that I was helped to heal. I was reborn as a person I didn't even recognize -- a stranger in a strange land, in a larger world which seemed alien to everyone. I shook my head at the utterly surreal and tragic series of events that led me to be at the one place I never expected or intended to be -- but through unbelievable circumstances became the one place I was supposed to be. I found strength in those who were stronger than I could ever have hoped to be. In the shadow of death, I learned to live again.

And in time I fell in love again -- with a girl named Jayne.

I met her through a friend of mine. He was supposed to be working at the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th, but called in sick at the last minute.

But that's his story.

Dead Star Twilight

I've been promoting it all week and here it is: My memoir, Dead Star Twilight, is now available in a special updated edition and, most importantly, on a pay-what-you-want basis. The e-book can be downloaded free-of-charge by clicking the link below; if you decide that you'd like to pay for it, just drop whatever you feel is fair -- or whatever you can afford -- into the Paypal electronic tip jar in the sidebar on the right-hand side of the screen. Put in a few bucks. Put in more. Put in nothing at all. It's honestly your choice. The only goal for me is to get as many people as possible to read this book.

For those who happen to be brand new around here, Dead Star Twilight documents in occasionally brutal detail my descent into drug addiction while living and working in Los Angeles, my decision to get clean and time in a county-funded rehab center in Miami, and my fight for a measure of redemption while working for NBC News in New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. I won't get into specifics beyond that; you'll just have to read for yourself, and now you can do that for nothing more than a little of your time.

I do want to make a few things clear, in the interest of full disclosure and in an effort to head off any of the inevitable nagging questions that pop into people's heads when they read memoirs these days. They're the same points I made when I first put Dead Star Twilight out into the ether three years ago.

As the story in the book is told from my point of view and relays the events I experienced as best I remember them, I have no illusions about the fact that it may not necessarily jibe with the perspectives of the very real people with whom I interacted during the period I chronicled. There was a time when these kinds of disclaimers weren't necessary, but that was before writers began getting busted left and right for creating fabulist fantasies out of their pasts. Know that I did my level best to ensure that the story I told was as factual as I could make it, but I offer no apologies for having a unique perspective.

Included in the story of Dead Star Twilight, you'll find quite a bit of detailed dialogue, the veracity of which any reasonable person would question. The fact is that the conversations were transcribed from nothing more than my own memory and I hope that where I may have been forced to "fill in the gaps" here and there, I stayed true to the spirit of what was actually said.

There are a few things within the story that have been changed outright from the events as I remember them, mostly for the sake of hiding the identities of those people and places who likely wouldn't want to see themselves identified in a public forum. Certain names and physical characteristics have been altered; some settings were moved around slightly; the chronology of one or two incidents related in the story have been adjusted to make them fit along the timeline and to avoid the book clocking in at 600 pages. Once again, I won't apologize for any of this as it in no way adversely affects the spirit of the story. That said, I want to make it clear that all the "characters" depicted in Dead Star Twilight are real; they aren't "composites." Likewise, the overall events detailed in the story really did happen and are relayed to the absolute best of my ability. While I wanted the book to be an entertaining and powerful read, I didn't want it to be bullshit, not if I was pushing it as non-fiction.

As I said, I have no doubt that my memories of the events in Dead Star Twilight will differ from those of others who lived through the same situations.

But those are their stories to tell.

This is mine.

I hope you enjoy it.

Download Dead Star Twilight Here

(To convert the PDF to E-pub or other Kindle and iPad friendly formats of your choosing, go here and/or here.)

Listening Post: Dead Star Twilight

When I first made Dead Star Twilight available back in 2008, I put together a "soundtrack" for it on iTunes which featured a lot of the music referenced within the story as well as a few songs I just felt fit the overall mood of the book. In the end, my decision to add a multimedia component to the initial release wound up being one of my favorite things about it.

Since music is such an important part of my life, it makes sense that it would play an invaluable role in Dead Star Twilight -- and it does. So this time around, once again, I'm releasing a musical companion to the book that I think adds considerably to the experience of reading it. As I said, most of this material is mentioned in one way or another within the story itself. For those interested, it's all available at iTunes; I've provided a link to this playlist at the bottom of the page.

1. The Twilight Singers -- Martin Eden

2. Doves -- One of These Days

3. Underworld -- Pearl's Girl

4. Morphine -- Whisper

5. Moby -- My Weakness

6. A Perfect Circle -- A Stranger

7. U2 -- New York

8. Jeff Buckley -- Lover, You Should've Come Over

9. Beck -- Nobody's Fault But My Own

10. Jimmy Eat World -- Bleed American

11. P.J. Harvey -- We Float

12. Don Henley -- New York Minute

13. Deftones -- Change (In the House of Flies)

14. Simon & Garfunkel -- Scarborough Fair

15. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club -- Rifles

16. Crazy Town w/Jay Gordon -- Black Cloud

17. David Gray -- My Oh My

18. Supreme Beings of Leisure -- Never the Same

19. Girls Against Boys -- Park Avenue

20. Poe -- Amazed

21. Patrick O'Hearn -- A Lovely Place To Be

22. Zero 7 -- Destiny

23. BT -- Love on Haight Street

24. A Tribe Called Quest -- Electric Relaxation

25. Sneaker Pimps -- Six Underground

26. Joni Mitchell -- Blue

27. The Crystal Method -- High Roller

28. Counting Crows -- A Long December

29. Elliott Smith -- Bottle Up and Explode!

30. Nine Inch Nails -- The Great Below

31. Kenna -- Hell Bent

32. Radiohead -- Lucky

33. R.E.M. -- Sweetness Follows

34. Pete Yorn -- Life on a Chain

35. Soundgarden -- Blow Up the Outside World

iTunes: Dead Star Twilight (Special Edition): The Soundtrack

The Cold Comfort of the In-Between

As I've been promoting all week, this coming Friday, September 2nd, I'll begin offering an updated special edition of my book, Dead Star Twilight, as a pay-what-you-want download on this site. The download itself will be free; what you give me for it beyond that is entirely up to you. At this point, the most important thing to me is that as many people as possible read the book; I really couldn't care less about money. You want it for free? It's all yours.

Over the past couple of days I've been posting excerpts from the book as part of the lead-up to the "re-release" and I'm continuing that today. What follows acts as another installment in the ongoing series of pieces I've published so far this week. It's appeared on the main page before, but once again it's been the kind of thing that's tended to generate a pretty good amount of feedback to my inbox, so here it is one last time. Tomorrow's excerpt, by the way, will be something new to the site.

While yesterday you got to read about a dinner date my ex-wife Abby and I went on in New York City just a little over a month after the 9/11 attacks, today I'm going back to about a year before that night. The last time Abby and I had seen each other before our dinner date was at a party in Los Angeles at the home shared by me and my wife at the time, Kara. The party was being thrown for a friend of ours' birthday; Abby happened to be in town, so she came along with the guest of honor.

The following takes place in January of 2001.

My drug addiction is at its height.


January, 2001: Deep Dark Truthful Mirror


About five minutes later, the doorbell rings.

I make my way around the guests, across our living room and to the foyer. To say that my heartbeat throttles up each time I hear the bell would be a gross understatement. With the bustling and cool sounds of the party at my back, I take a deep breath -- hold it -- open the door.

Standing in front of me is Brando.

I exhale.

"I thought you were Abby."

"Which Abby -- your ex?"

"How many Abbys do I know?"

"She's gonna be here tonight?"

"Oh yes," I say.

He flashes me a broad, toothy smile.

"Dude, your ex-wife and your new wife in the same room together. I'm suddenly glad I came."

"I can't believe I'm friends with you."

I step aside and let Brando in, then head toward the kitchen to get him a cocktail. Like me, he favors gin and tonics. When I return to the living room, he and Kara are laughing together. Once again, a matter of propriety: Kara would never publicly be rude to a friend of mine, especially not at a party she's hosting. It also doesn't hurt that Brando's almost impossible to dislike, even if you know that your husband's got a bad habit of doing heroin around him. Kara doesn't currently blame my friends for my drug use, which is actually wise on her part. However, it doesn't take much to gather that the favor shown to them can and will disintegrate in short order if I continue down this path.

Speaking of which --

I pull Brando off to the side, which conveniently allows Kara to continue her power-mingling. I hand him his drink and lower my voice, trying not to seem too shady.

"I've already had three of these," I say, tapping the side of his drink. "I'm ready for something stronger."

"Shit, with Abby and Kara here together? I don't blame you, kid."

I make the slightest motion with my head. It says it all: Let's go.

Brando smiles. "To the Bat-cave," he says.



I make one call to Isa to get her E.T.A. It's not for at least another half-hour to forty-five minutes. Perfect. I may be willing to take a minor risk to replenish my high, but I'm not fucking stupid enough to leave Kara and Abby unattended. Propriety or not, the results could be disastrous. Kara stands a good chance of keeping it together. Abby, however, is a different story. The irrepressible passion that makes her incredible in bed also makes her as volatile and dangerously unpredictable as a suicide bomber.

Less than a minute after I get off the phone with Isa, Brando and I are out the door and trotting back to the garage, which is just behind my apartment. The sliding door goes up. We get in. My freshly washed and waxed car, which I had backed into the garage, is pulled straight out. Despite the chill in the night air, the windows go down and the sunroof opens as the vehicle slides down the driveway along the side of my apartment building. It emerges, brilliant white headlights flaring, from the thin space between the building and a large hedge which separates our property from the one next door. It really does look like we just pulled out of the Bat-cave. Arriving partygoers, walking along the sidewalk directly in front of the apartment, jump out of the way as I gun the engine, turn the wheel and speed off into the Los Angeles night -- tires screaming.

"What did you tell Kara?" Brando shouts over the wind and the sound of the stereo, which is pumping Girls Against Boys' Park Avenue.

"We were going to get more beer."

"Think she bought it?"

"Hope so."

Brando laughs, bouncing up and down in his seat like a kid.

"You're fuckin' dialed-in, brother -- you're dialed-in, I tell you," he says, spouting L.A. lingo I'm almost sure he invented himself. He sticks his head out the sunroof and shouts/sings:

"COME ON BE MY BABY TONIGHT! I SEEN THE WAY YOU TREAT THOSE OTHER THUGS YOU BEEN WITH!"

I let out a maniacal laugh, shift -- force the accelerator almost all the way to the floor. Wilshire Boulevard goes by in a blur of color and light.



The buy is simple. Even simpler than usual. Get to the Westlake District. Make the deal. Head back home. Stop quickly to actually do what I said I was going to do -- pick up beer. The entire trip takes twenty-five minutes.

We pull the car into the garage and spend about ten more minutes sitting in privacy, smoking the fruits of our labor. Thirty-five minutes total. Right on time.

Abby's about to arrive and I'm as high as the sky.

This whole situation tonight is completely fucked-up. Now, thankfully, so am I. Yes, yes, yes, Reality is so much better when you're not facing it sober.

Once again, the will of the gods. This has all been preordained and everything is proceeding as they have foreseen -- according to their divine plan. Five minutes after Brando and I walk in the back door and put the beer in the refrigerator, the doorbell rings. This time there's no racing heart. There are no nervous deep breaths. There's just me and the glorious, satisfied calm I've inhaled into my system. I give Kara the required smile of solidarity, edge through the crowd -- which has grown quite a bit over the last half-hour -- make my way to the door and open it wide.

Isa's there, smiling.

I wish her a happy thirtieth birthday and give her a hug, inviting her to come inside and enjoy the cool fucking party in her honor. As she steps aside, there's only the sight I had been anticipating and dreading in equal parts all night -- that is until I carpet-bombed my apprehensions into complete submission.

Abby gives me a tight little smile and silently nods her head in what looks to be a strange sort of acceptance of the discomfort of the situation. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kara watching me -- waiting to see what I do and how I do it. I smile, careful not to make it seem either too inviting or too bittersweet. I lean in, wrap my arms around her and pull her close -- squeeze then release.

"Hi, Ab."

"Hello, Chester."

She's wearing a black coat over a red button-down blouse and a pair of jeans with black high-heels. Her hair is shorter than I remember. Tonight's little excursion to the other side of the tracks has all but guaranteed that my stomach won't be tied in nervous knots at the sight of her, but the overwhelming desire I feel whenever Abby is in my immediate presence -- that's something even the drugs can't calm.

I invite her in -- into the lion's den -- and take her coat. For what it's worth, I understand fully that this unexpected planetary alignment is a hell of a lot harder on her than it is on either Kara or me. We have the home-field advantage. She's the outsider. I'm almost sorry she's not on drugs. I watch her quietly and coolly move her eyes over the candlelit elegance of our apartment as she enters. She's sizing things up, like a stray cat that's wandered in and is proceeding deeper into unknown territory with caution and restraint. Still, if she's trying to project a subtle air of confidence, she's not failing. In this room full of people, she seems to silently draw attention to herself. I'm not sure whether it's an innate magnetism or the fact that Kara has probably seen to it that almost everyone at this party knows exactly who she is. If the latter is true -- and I wouldn't be surprised if it is -- then I'm going to find myself walking an even finer line than I thought tonight. I won't let Kara ally her forces against Abby. At the same time, my overall loyalty has to lie with my wife -- my current wife. I can't allow either of these women -- or both of them -- to create a spectacle.

My diplomatic solution: Act like absolutely nothing is wrong.

I close the door, then turn to make my way through the polite and stylish throng -- guests talking and holding drinks -- with Abby.

"Come on -- meet Kara," I say, gently putting my hand on the back of her arm. I'm fully aware that my thumb makes a tiny, involuntary circular motion against her skin as I do this.

I hear her take a sharp breath -- hold it. I can't tell if it's from our sudden contact or the entire situation. "Can't wait," she says as she releases it.

"That's the exact same thing she said about you -- and it sounded like bullshit coming from her too," I say, threading the two of us through the tight spaces between guests and keeping my focus forward at all times. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Abby continuing to look around -- inquisitively inspecting. The flickering candlelight casts deep, long shadows in all directions. They alternately illuminate and swallow faces and create living art on the high walls. Poe's Amazed drones beautifully from the stereo.

People part for us like the Red Sea. Their heads follow us as we move past them. They all seem to be waiting for the moment when the Irresistible Force meets the Immovable Object. It becomes perfectly clear: Kara has told everyone here what's going on. As much as I love her, the realization makes me shake my head and suppress a grimace.

Bitch.

The last of the crowd parts and there, in the clearing, is Kara. She's standing with Isa, the two of them talking and laughing. She's wearing skin-tight black leather pants and a sheer white tank-top with nothing underneath. She looks -- for lack of a euphemistically appropriate term -- really fucking hot. I shoot a quick glance in Abby's direction and do a lightning-fast double-take when I notice her eyes.

Oh, holy shit.

I abruptly stop, take her by the arm and hold her back -- firmly. She turns and looks at me with a smile that's almost admirably subversive in its projection of complete innocence.

"What?" she says -- a tiny hint of playful sweetness in her voice.

I just stare into her eyes.

Jesus fucking Christ.

"Nothing," I say. "Nothing at all."

I'm not doing this. Not here. Not now. Not this close to Kara.

I turn and lead Abby one more step forward. Here goes nothing. Almost everyone at this party is pretending like he or she isn't watching -- but almost everyone is. I can feel a roomful of eyes.

Who to introduce to whom. What does Miss Manners say about a situation like this? Simple, don't get yourself into one.

"Abby, I'd like you to meet Kara."

Abby extends her hand and Kara smiles and takes it. Abby manages another tight-lipped smile. Kara smiles back. I hold my breath and wait for time to stop and the universe to collapse in on itself.

"It's really good to finally meet you. We're so glad you could come tonight," Kara says, wrapping her other hand around Abby's and giving it the kind of engaging, two-handed shake that screams sincerity.

"Thank you for inviting me."

Such innocuous conversation and such fucking hysterical subtext.

Kara asks Abby how her flight was. Abby says fine -- tells Kara that we have a beautiful home. Kara says thank you -- offers Abby a drink. Abby says no thank you.

And that's when I know for sure.

I glance across the room and find Brando. He stops chatting up a great-looking brunette I don't recognize just long enough to give me a confused look -- he shrugs as if to ask what's wrong. I simply shake my head. Just then, Kara -- in what appears to be a respectable attempt at congeniality -- offers to show Abby around the apartment. In the short time she's been in our living room I've already caught a whiff of passive-aggression emanating from my ex-wife like gasoline vapors. Left unchecked, this could explode into a very bitter, very public tantrum at some point during the night. For now, though, I choose to leave well-enough alone and see if the Greasers and the Socs really can play nice. Abby follows directly behind Kara as she navigates the guests, the two of them disappearing into the dining area. Everyone watches as they pass and titters in their wake. Everyone probably marvels at Kara's graciousness and calm in dealing with this uncomfortable situation -- just like Kara hoped they all would.

I'm left alone with Isa -- which is exactly what I wanted.

I take her by the arm.

"Can I borrow you for a minute?" I say through a forced smile of clenched teeth, pulling her into the dark of the downstairs hallway directly off the living room.

I stop and turn to face her.

"Are you fucking crazy?" I say.

"What?"

"What's she on?"

"Who?"

"Don't who me. You know exactly what I'm talking about. What is Abby on? Her pupils are the size of saucers and she's not drinking. There's no way Abby would walk into a situation like this stone cold sober. The only thing that would stop her from drinking right now is not needing to."

So much for feeling sorry for her because she isn't on drugs. And the hypocrite of the year award goes to --

Isa just shakes her head and sighs, resigned. She focuses her eyes over my shoulder -- on the guests behind me in the living room.

"What is it with you two? Why are you both such pains in my ass?"

"It's ecstasy, isn't it," I say.

There's an interminable pause.

"Mushrooms," Isa finally says. She takes a sip of her drink and I hear her casually crush a piece of ice between her teeth.

I close my eyes and exhale through my mouth loudly. I'm not high enough, apparently.

"You let her come here tripping?"

"Hey, don't look at me. I'm not responsible for your ex-wife."

"She's staying with you, Isa. Is she so wily that you couldn't keep an eye on her for a couple of hours?"

"She got them from John. I think he was kind of hoping to sleep with her if she got fucked-up enough."

"Who the fuck is John?" I say, trying to stop my voice from turning into an effeminate squeal.

"Nobody. Some guy."

"Lovely."

I'm shocked that I feel a sudden twinge of jealousy shoot through me like electricity. As far as I'm concerned this gives me a second reason to kick the living shit out of this John guy if I ever meet him.

"Sweetie, I'm the idiot." I'm gripping both of her arms for emphasis. "I'm the one who does irresponsible, stupid shit. You're supposed to be the smart one. I don't like you stepping on my territory. Now we've got to get her out of here." I let go.

"She'll be fine. She's very subdued."

"Yeah, so are most spree killers, until something sets them off -- then you don't want to be anywhere near them."

"Just leave her alone. She's gonna walk around quietly and no one will be the wiser. Make a scene and who knows what'll happen. Did I mention how tired I am of you two by the way?"

"Leave her alone? She's hallucinating. She already thinks Kara's a dragon lady. Chances are she's actually seeing it right now."

As if on cue, I glance over and see my wife, who's buzzed on two martinis, and my ex-wife, who's tripping on mushrooms, come around the corner and back into the living room.

This is all kinds of fucking perfect.

I fall back on the drug-induced haze in my own brain to help me bring a perfectly insouciant smile to my face as they spot me. Out of the corner of my eye I see Isa look at them, then back at me, then shake her head and walk away -- probably back toward the bar. I just keep right on smiling. Kara is willing to play the polite and pleasant host to Abby, but only up to a point. Her canteen of goodwill is only so big and there's no telling how long she's going to have to wander through this barren desert tonight, so she'd better pace herself. This is no doubt why she's now leading my ex-wife in my direction -- to pawn her off on me. The expression on Kara's face as she approaches -- with Abby safely behind her -- is, I have to admit, a hilarious mask of faked cheer. She's giving me a pronounced, toothy grin that seems to say exactly what I was just thinking a moment ago: This is all kinds of fucking perfect.

Of course Kara doesn't know the half of it, unless Abby began running her fingers over the knives in the kitchen like a baby playing with a rattle for the first time: With a noticeable combination of excitement, confusion and wonder.

"It looks like we're starting to run low on hors d'oeuvres," Kara says through her exaggerated smile. "I'm going to get some out of the fridge, 'kay? Here, why don't you show Abby around a little bit more."

And with that she steps out of the way and the woman I promised my life to years before her is once again standing in front of me, her face suddenly looking to me like one of those paintings of the puppies with the big eyes. I'm sure that right now to her my face looks something like this too, if not worse.

I shake my head and shove my hands into my pockets -- sighing -- as Kara steps away. All I can think to do at this point is scream, "Serenity Now!" like Frank Costanza on Seinfeld. That's really all that's missing from this entire experience.

Abby continues to throw her gaze around in every direction -- likely absorbing all the pretty shapes and colors in my apartment -- as she takes the final step to fill the space between us.

"Nice place you have here, Chester," she says, glancing around one last time then turning to look directly at me with a big smile. "And she's just lovely."

My expression is blank. My shoulders slump. I need more drugs -- no sane person would deny me that right now.

"Glad you think so, Ab."

"No, I'm serious. It really is a beautiful home you've made here," she says, nodding and smiling and nodding and smiling.

I already know what's coming. I know where Abby's going with this and, high as a fucking kite or not, I don't want to be around when she gets there. I can't leave her alone, though. So I just stare ahead and wait for the inevitable. It's on its way.

"Yeah," she continues, looking around again and nodding and smiling and nodding and smiling. "A really beautiful home. A gorgeous wife. A perfect life."

I concentrate on my breathing.

Here it comes.

"Everything is just perfect," she says, nodding and smiling and nodding and smiling.

Closer --

She once again looks directly into my eyes. Her pupils are monstrous. They've practically swallowed all of the hazel surrounding them like two black holes. Mine, meanwhile, are the size of pinpoints. Together we just about even out to one normal, sober person.

There's suddenly silence between us.

Come on, spit it out.

"Of course, I did happen to notice my shelving units in your perfect little kitchen," she declares with a stab of pure satisfaction.

SERENITY NOW!

I close my eyes, inhale deeply and try not to choke on the air in the room. I'm about to do something incredibly dumb -- which is pretty laughable, considering that I can't imagine anything dumber than being on heroin while your ex-wife, who's tripping, is wandering around a party with your new wife: I'm actually going to debate this with her.

"Those aren't your shelving units anymore. I got those, remember?" I say calmly.

"Which you never paid me for."

"You're really gonna do this here -- right now?"

Her expression changes -- her brow pushing down on her eyes. She blinks rapidly and heavily. She glances around at the floor. I don't know if this is just some effect of the drugs -- her drugs -- but I can't deny that she suddenly seems very, very hurt.

Enough of this.

I reach out, take her arm and lead her through the guests, pushing her gently in front of me. As we move in the direction of the front door, for a brief moment I allow myself the thought of simply turning her, marching her up the stairs and into the bedroom, stripping her naked and making love to her.

Let's settle this like adults. Let's settle it the way we always have.

We make our way to the door, open it and step outside. I'm not even going to bother concerning myself with what anyone at the party might think about me being outside and alone with my ex. I couldn't give a shit at this point. Once we clear the windows, I turn her around and look right into her huge, pixyish eyes.

"Alright, come on -- let's get this over with," I say.

"Get what over with?"

"Just say what you want to say so that we can try to put it behind us and have an uneventful rest of the evening."

As these words come out of my mouth, I immediately regret them. Abby takes full advantage of the opening I've given her.

"Put it behind us?" she sneers. "It looks like you've had no trouble doing that."

"What do you want from me, Abby?"

"I want you to take some goddamned responsibility."

"For what?" I say, trying not to sound too shrill. It isn't easy at this point.

"For what you did to me. For what you did to us."

"And you've decided you want this mea culpa right now?"

"I think the poetic justice is kind of fitting." She stands with her fists planted into her hips.

"What do you want?" I'm practically spitting the words through gritted teeth. I take a step toward her. "Do you want me to march right back in there, shut off the CD player and say, 'Scuse me, folks, can I have everybody's attention?'" I hold my arms out wide at my sides. "'I am an asshole. See that beautiful young woman right over there? I cheated on her, took her for granted and robbed her of her heart, soul and innocence and crushed every dream she ever had. Because of that, I don't deserve any of the luxurious trappings you see all around you here tonight. Now if anyone needs me, I'll be hanging in the upstairs shower.' Is that what you want?" I say, then before she can even respond the way I know she will -- "Don't fucking answer that."

"This could've been our life, Chez," she says -- with something bordering on desperation. Her face becomes a mask of hurt again.

I turn and look over my shoulder at my apartment. My gorgeous two-story place in West Hollywood. It is indeed perfect.

"No, it couldn't have," I say, almost wistfully. I'm suddenly exhausted -- I feel my whole body sag. "I mean, look at me, Abby. You know me better than anybody -- even better than Kara. Do you really think all that domestic bliss in there is me? This whole place is Kara. This whole life. I mean, it's beautiful and I like it, but make no mistake -- I had nothing to do with creating it. All I do is help pay the bills and try to stand up straight and smile pretty when company comes over." I'm pacing now. I feel like I'm sinking into the ground. "Jesus -- Kara was pissed that my credit wasn't good enough to get an even bigger and nicer place. That's me, Abby -- the guy with the lousy credit and the sordid past and the metric ton of emotional baggage. This?" I thrust my arm in the direction of my attractive home and the social event filled with attractive people that's going on within it. "This is all just a floor show."

"We could've done it together."

A tired chuckle escapes my throat. "You're dreaming."

"I know. I always was."

The overwhelming sadness of this simple, tragic statement hurts like hell. There aren't enough drugs in the world to bury my sorrow under.

"I'm sorry, Abby, I really am."

"I know you are, Chester. You're always sorry."

There's no venom in her voice. This isn't an attack or indictment -- it's simply the truth. I used to half-joke that my personal mantra was, "Apologize Often, Change Never." It's funny for a while, until you find yourself looking down at the face of someone who reaped the cruel reward of loving a person content to live life by such a pathetic standard.

There's a sullen hush between us. A moment of silence for the death of youth, innocence, love, hope -- everything we once had and were. The moment feels like it goes on forever. I can't pull my eyes away from her.

"You look great," I say softly, breaking the stillness.

"Thank you. So do you." Abby reaches out and runs a hand across my stomach. "You're too thin, though."

"Thanks, Mom. I really wouldn't trust my eyes right now if I were you."

Despite her best efforts to remain somber, an adorable and mischievous smile slowly creeps across her face.

"Uh-huh," I say, nodding. "I can't believe you came here tripping. Tonight just wasn't challenging enough already?"

The corners of her mouth drop. Her face expresses something beyond burden. God only knows what I look like to her right now.

"Believe it or not, I'm worried about you," she says.

"What's to worry about? Haven't you seen my apartment and my wife? Everything's just marvy. You said it yourself."

"What's wrong?" -- quietly.

"Nothing."

I want to tell her. I want to tell her that I'm high and I'm scared. Instead, as usual, I say nothing. I'm terrified of doing drugs. I'm even more terrified of not doing drugs.

"We should get inside -- it's chilly out here," I finally say.

"Not to me. I'm a New York City girl."

"Yeah, I know. I'll have to come visit you sometime."

We turn to walk back inside.

"Don't even think about it," she says. "I moved there to get away from you. Stay out my city."

These Days When Darkness Falls Early

Following up yesterday's excerpt from Dead Star Twilight, which highlighted the depth of the divide between my wife at the time and myself in the days following the 9/11 attack, this is a portion of the book that's appeared on the main page before but which never fails to generate a positive response. It deals with the sadness of regret, the grace of forgiveness, and the anguish of loss.

After working almost non-stop since two days after the attack -- and almost immediately following the antagonistic conversation detailed here yesterday -- I agreed to have dinner with my ex-wife, Abby, who was also working in New York City.

She and I hadn't been close in years. And I was still nursing a very fresh wound from having recently been left by Kara.

Once again, beginning this Friday, a new edition of Dead Star Twilight will be available as a pay-what-you-want download -- essentially free if you choose -- on this site.


October, 2001: The Past Isn't Through With Us


"God, you look like shit."

"Thanks, I thought I looked pretty good all things considered."

"You're too fucking thin," Abby says.

She kisses me on the cheek and invites me into her apartment. It's my first actual experience with what New Yorkers have the low-expectations to consider a living space. The entire place is no bigger than a walk-in closet. I make a quick sweep with my eyes, which doesn't take longer than a second or two. It's technically a studio, but somewhere along the line some architectural genius decided to throw in a piece of drywall that only comes about three-quarters of the way across the room, creating a partition which sections off a "bedroom" on the other side. The kitchen is simply a small refrigerator and a mini-stove at one end of the main space, next to the entrance. In the corner is a tiny room holding what I can see is the toilet, but there doesn't appear to be anything else in there.

"What, do you bathe in the sink?" I ask.

Abby's wrapped in a towel, her hair wet -- an affecting sight which I'm trying to ignore -- so I know she cleans herself somehow in this place. She walks back behind the partition into her pretend bedroom.

"The shower's in the closet."

"The shower's in the closet?"

"Don't start with me."

My eyes dart past a window which features a view of what I assume is the building next-door -- a brick facade that can't be more than a few feet away. So much for natural light. Besides her books and some old photographs on the precious little wall-space, there's not much in this small room that I immediately recognize from our time together. Our roller-coaster ride of a relationship.

I glance past the wall with the books and the pictures and into the bedroom, just in time to see Abby drop her towel and bend over to slide into her underwear. Most of her body is hidden by the wall, the edge of which seems to split her in half from top to bottom. I watch the curve of her side; her back and her hips; her naked ass and legs. I look away and try to put it out of my mind. Still, from an aesthetic standpoint, there's no denying that she's the only worthwhile thing to look at in this place. Abby was always all curves, with an adorably cherubic face and curly auburn hair. This still holds true. The fact that she's never been very modest around me is something I can 't decide if I'm thankful for right now.

It dawns on me that it's been an especially overwhelming day for memories.

I want to believe that it's unintentional on my part, but I catch a glimpse of her hooking her bra behind her back as I move my eyes across the room again and onto the TV. A rerun of The X-Files is on, a show which, in addition to cigarettes, is one of Abby's avowed addictions. She emerges from the bedroom a moment later, wearing jeans and pulling a cream-colored sweater over her head. She shakes her damp hair out and bends over, patting it dry with the towel that was wrapped around her just a moment ago.

"You really think I'm too thin?" I say with a smirk.

She and I have talked on the phone a few times since my arrival in New York. She knows what led me here -- the unedited version. We've debated getting together, but this is the first time we've been face-to-face in close to a year.

"Yeah, you don't look much better than you did the last time I saw you."

"I was on drugs then," I say, remembering my last days as skinny and sick addict, before transitioning into bloated and utterly repulsive addict.

"Yes, I know. I knew then."

"No you didn't," I say incredulously.

She stands up straight -- throwing her hair back.

"Yes," she says. "I did."

She brushes past me, which in this place means a tight squeeze past a tiny bistro table that's cluttered with take-out bags. She picks up a hair-dryer perched on the edge of the stove, turns it on and begins running it across her hair.

"You did not," I mumble under my breath as I begin to explore the shoebox Abby calls home.

"I heard that -- and yes I did," I hear her say, over the steady white noise of the dryer.

This is the way it's always been with Abby: Her insisting that she knows me better than I know myself -- me arguing that she doesn't, knowing full-well that she's probably right.

I scan her rickety black bookshelves. In the background, Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are discussing how it is that a character played by Peter Boyle can know so much about a series of murders without having actually committed them. I run my finger across the dust on one shelf; Abby never was much for keeping things spotless. I read off the titles to myself; they're mostly sci-fi paperbacks, with a smattering of Koontz and one or two books on Judaism. After our break-up, Abby jumped neck-deep into her faith in a way she never had before. Seeing the concrete proof of that now just makes me shake my head at the comically obvious implication.

Un-fucking-believable. I drive women to religion.

As I come to the end of the bookshelf, I spot a small picture of the two of us. I recognize it immediately; it was taken years ago on a quiet beach in the middle of nowhere.

There we were. Young. In love. Smiles bright against freshly-tanned skin. A glowing orange sky, kissing the blue ocean horizon in the distance behind us. I instinctively close my eyes and try to remember more of it -- almost willing myself to disappear there, if for no other reason than the fact that at that time I didn't have a care in the world.

The hair-dryer goes quiet and there's just the sound from the TV now.

"It was great to be stupid and innocent, wasn't it?" I hear Abby say.

I don't even bother to turn around with the picture in my hand -- an expression of surprise on my face. Of course she knew what I was looking at. I just smile.

"Yes it was."

I hear the hardwood floor creak under her feet as she takes the few steps needed to cross the room. When I turn around, she's right in front of me. She looks up at me, almost begrudgingly, and places her hand on the side of my face, running it down my cheek.

"Are you okay, Chester?" Her pet name for me.

I exhale.

"Yeah. I am."

I close my eyes and swallow a headful of longing. I'd just about forgotten the overwhelming tenderness of a touch like this. She gives me a smile that perfectly encompasses a thousand emotions at once. This is the way it's always been with Abby.

"Come on -- let's go eat," she says.



The chill of fall has settled over the city. The leaves from the trees that line East 80th Street cascade gently down around Abby and me as we walk toward busy 2nd Avenue. I put my hands in the pockets of my long black coat, one of the recent purchases I made at the direct request of the President of the United States. It's a Friday night, and Manhattan is just beginning to come to life. The pall that's blanketed everything since the attack is starting to lift -- slowly. It's almost as if the massive hole torn in the fuselage of the city -- the one that sucked out so many lives and so much air in seconds -- is finally being filled. People are breathing again, but those breaths are still short and shallow.



Abby's eyes light up like a little girl's as the waitress puts a big plate of colorful raw fish in front of us. Her mouth opens in an adorable, wide smile. She breaks her chopsticks apart and digs in, stopping only to take a sip of sake.

"So what did the queen bitch say to you on the phone this morning that got you so riled up?" she says, her mouth half-full.

"I thought you didn't want to hear about this." I'm absently looking out the window as the Upper East Side crowd floats by.

"I married you -- I'm obviously a sucker for punishment."

"Money."

"Shocking."

"She says I owe her somewhere in the neighborhood of three grand." I pause for a moment. "No wait, I take that back. I say it's somewhere in the neighborhood of three grand because I can't remember the exact figure right now. She of course knows how much it is, down to the penny." I take a swig of my Asahi. "Sent me an itemized list and everything."

"And your take on it?"

I shrug, rolling my eyes upward. Abby smiles and takes another sip of her sake. I continue.

"My take is that I'm still hoping our marriage can be salvaged. She on the other hand is handing me the tab like a waitress who wants to go the hell home."

"Sucks, chief."

Abby's lapse into what anyone else would consider wholly unladylike vernacular makes me chuckle.

"No shit," I say, popping a bite of sashimi into my mouth with the chopsticks. I'm still not eating much these days.

In talk in between chewing. "The fucked-up thing is that she has all of our worldly possessions." I swallow hard. "I mean, she took all the furniture, all the wedding gifts, and of course my heart," I say, only half-jokingly.

"Yeah, well that's worthless."

I don't take the bait, choosing instead to zero-in on the literal meaning of Abby's words.

"Actually, you may have just hit it on the head," I say, drifting off in my own thoughts as I begin to put things together. "Love. Passion. Emotion. It's all insignificant because you can't put a price tag on it. Something's only worthwhile if you can assign a tangible value to it."

"She's that much of a hard-ass?"

"She doesn't see it that way. She sees it as being practical," I say, looking not at Abby, but through her -- to someplace very far away. "She was always more interested in the nice house than in who was living in it with her."

"You ever think that maybe she wanted both? I mean, you're easy to love but not exactly a breeze to live with."

"I always thought that was such a cop-out, the whole 'I love you but I can't live with you' thing. Maybe I was wrong."

Abby puts down her chopsticks and looks right at me. "You've been wrong about a lot of things lately," she says -- scolding.

Under the table, I brush my leg lightly against hers.

Her eyes widen. "And you're definitely wrong about that. You're not getting laid."

I smile, feigning shock.

"Oh come on. I just touched your leg for Christ's sake. I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know you."

"You know nothing," I say, still smiling -- focusing my attention on another piece of sashimi.

"I know that you'd better start coming to terms with this."

"And what's this?"

"You're heading for divorce court."

"You say that like you're glad."

She suddenly looks up at me, all humor gone from her face. "I'm sorry you're hurting, Chez, but I won't lie -- of course part of me thinks you deserve this."

"I'd never have the nerve to hold that against you."

"That's because you can't."

"You're right." I nod.

Abby glances down, looking at what's left on the plate. The sudden silence between us is deafening. It seems to go on for several minutes.

"Let's just finish this up and get out of here," she finally says. "I think I want to go home."

In the time since our break-up, we've kept a tenuous friendship -- fraught with the knowledge that moments like this are always lurking just beneath the surface of any interaction. Abby loves me more than any woman ever has, and at least as much as any other human being on the planet. She also has the ability to hold a grudge longer than just about anyone.

"Come on," I say. "Please -- let's change the subject."

She pauses -- years of hurt still registering on her face. She then sits up straight, breathes in deeply, and -- as if through sheer force of will -- seems to visibly exhale the pain and anger. Her auburn curls bounce gently as she does this.

"Okay, fine."

She gathers herself and downs what's left of her sake -- a damn good amount -- in one giant gulp. She practically slams the empty bottle down on the table and wipes her mouth with her napkin.

"I changed my mind," she says. "You are getting laid. Let's get out of here -- I want to fuck."

This is the way it's always been with Abby.



It has been an especially overwhelming day for memories.

I'm walking back to my car now, my coat pulled up tight -- hands in my pockets. It got much colder once the evening gave way to night. November's only about a week away. I close my eyes for a moment and listen to the drone of the city -- the traffic, the people, the trains rumbling beneath my feet. I soak it all in. It's more inebriating than any drug in existence. I'm lightheaded. Maybe it's this high that's killing the need for another high -- the one I sought out for months and months until nothing was left of me.

Sex with Abby was what it's been since our first night together all those years ago, the night that kept us coming back for more: It was primal -- a connection I've never felt with another living soul. It was warm and comfortable. It was wild and passionate. It was Abby. There really isn't any way to do it justice other than to assign it its proper name.

As I reach my car, I take out my keys and get ready to step into the street to the driver's side. I catch a glimpse of myself in the large glass pane of a storefront window.

I stop in my tracks.

I stare for a moment, then approach the reflection -- the reflection I simply don't recognize at all.

My expression is one of absolute disbelief.

Who the hell am I? My God, what the hell am I doing here? A little over two months ago I was in rehab in South Florida. Six months ago I was strung out. My wife, my home, everything I knew and loved is three-thousand miles away. It's all gone. I don't recognize any of this: This place, these clothes, this person. The entire world changed in one day -- and I somehow got a second chance. I'm dying inside, and yet in some ways I've never felt more alive.



I barely remember the drive home through the Manhattan night, through the Lincoln Tunnel and out to the relative emptiness of Jersey. The strange feeling that I can't seem to get my head around -- that this is all some kind of combination dream/nightmare that I'll eventually wake up from -- continues as I walk into the hotel. In fact, I smile at how perfectly the David Lynchian scene suddenly unfolding around me seems to affirm my assessment. As I stroll silently through the lobby, I'm surrounded on all sides by ballroom dancers. They're everywhere you look. Some are practicing various steps. Some are rushing by on tip-toes. Some are anxiously waiting in a line that snakes across the back of the lobby. The men are in tuxes. The women are in fluffy, taffeta skirts. They're all wearing makeup that looks as if it's been put on with a trowel, giving them the eerie appearance of mannequins that have come to life.

Over the top of one of the main ballrooms off to my left is a giant banner that reads: Northern New Jersey Ballroom Dancing Competition Regional Finals.

In spite of the tragic events that have populated this hotel with a rotating cast of Red Cross workers, media members and volunteers, it didn't take long for things to return to relative normal around the Crowne Plaza, North Jersey. That means a steady stream of conventions, conferences and reunions swinging through here each weekend. Sometimes, like tonight, the effect is just surreal. Occasionally, though, a convergence of mismatched events is flat-out hilarious. Last weekend the place was packed with an AARP conference, a Girl Scout Jamboree and dozens of fans of a death metal band that had apparently chosen to stay here for two weekend gigs in the city. I couldn't get the image out of my head of little girls and pensioners -- straggling behind from their groups -- being pounced on and dragged quickly and quietly into the death metal kids' rooms, all while the hotel staff received constant reports of guests mysteriously disappearing.

I give Arben a smirk and a nod of solidarity as I walk past the front desk. He returns a look of exhausted frustration.

A few minutes later -- after a ride up in the elevator with three couples, each doing slight variations on the Scott Hastings and Tina Sparkle theme -- I'm safely tucked away in my room. I'm stretched out on the couch, a small glass of bottled water from the mini-bar, on ice, on the coffee table next to me. The curtains are open and the only light in the room is coming from the electrified skyline of Manhattan across the river, outside my floor-to-ceiling window. I close my eyes and take long, deep breaths.



It's winter.

Light snow falls from tumid, leaden clouds rolling across the gun-metal gray sky above.

It consumes sound, so that the distant moan of this ghostly city is barely audible. It feels as if I'm the only living soul for miles.

I'm walking along one of the paths deep in the heart of Central Park. Above me the wind slips easily through the naked skeletons of the trees. The branches brushing against each other make the only sound that breaks the perpetual quiet.

My hands are in my pockets and my long black coat is pulled up tight around my shoulders, the collar turned up, steeling me against the chill. I can feel the bottom of the coat blowing gently against the backs of my thighs.

The path in front of me appears hazy through the rolling soft gauze of my own breath.

I don't know why I'm here.

I leave the path, pushing myself through the snow gathered on the ground and up a slight hill. As I come to its crest, I'm face to face with a world of white -- a clearing covered with snow.

There in the center of it is a child -- a little girl. Her back is to me, but I can hear her high-pitched laughter. She reaches down, scoops up a handful of snow and throws it into the air, screaming in delight.

She's all alone.

I walk toward her, hesitantly. I don't understand what she's doing here by herself. I don't understand any of this.

Her laughter is so beautiful.

Her back is still to me. All I can see is her little pink coat. There's white fur around the hood. It matches her white mittens.

I get closer.

She continues playing. Laughing. There's innocence -- joyous abandon -- like I haven't known in years.

She's just a few feet away from me now.

I lean in, confused, and finally speak.

"What are you doing here, honey?"

She turns around and looks at me, removing her hood.

It's her.

I remember the pictures I once saw of her as a child.

This little girl is Kara.

I take a step back, the fear and confusion on my face giving way to tears that pool almost immediately. I drop to my knees, quietly sobbing. The world feels as if it's crashing down around me.

I understand.

She smiles at me. "Why are you crying?" she says sweetly.

I can barely get the words out. "Because I was supposed to take care of you. I wasn't supposed to fail you," I say through sobs.

She examines me with pity in her eyes. She takes two steps forward and wraps her small arms around me, holding me. I rest my head on her shoulder. I can't stop crying.

"I'm so sorry, Kara," I cry. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay."

I put my arms around her and hold her tightly.

"It's okay," she repeats.



The darkness of the room comes into wet focus. I wake up crying. I clutch my own chest with both hands, holding myself with as much strength as I can -- curling up into a tight ball on the couch.

This is the way it is.

All the distractions -- the chaos, the tragedy, the drudgery, the drama, the exhilaration -- disappear when you find yourself alone at the end of the day.

That's when you're left with nothing but yourself.

With the truth.

With the pain.

With the inescapable emptiness.

I can't stop sobbing.

Oh God, I miss you so much.

I love you and I miss you so much.

Listening Post

Obviously, there's a theme this week.

Here's U2 -- New York.

Our Hearts Littering the Topsoil

Over the next few days, I'll be publishing some excerpts from Dead Star Twilight in the lead-up to the release of the book as a pay-what-you-want download this Friday. A couple of them will have appeared here on the main page before at some point; at least one will be brand new to those who haven't read the actual book yet.

The following took place about a month-and-a-half after 9/11. I had been living in a hotel in the New York City area since the attack, covering the story for MSNBC. Immediately prior to the events of September 11th, I had been in rehab for a very serious heroin addiction -- one which forced me to leave my home in Los Angeles and go back to Miami to seek help. My wife at the time, estranged and in the process of leaving me completely, remained in L.A. I was trying to patch things up with her, but the 3,000 mile distance was by no means the only thing separating us.


October, 2001: The Past Isn't Through with Us


I push my face up from under the water, inhaling deeply as I feel myself break free into the open air. My eyes open and the room assembles into focus. I sit up and drape my arm over the side of the big stark-white tub in my hotel bathroom, taking in the quiet calm which is in such sharp contrast to the whirlwind of chaos in the outside world right now.

It’s on.

We’re at war.

You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe distance.

It was pretty much the granddaddy of foregone conclusions. Somebody had to pay for the attacks of September 11th and as retribution goes, the military response seems to at least be pointed in the right direction—for the moment anyway. The ability to wield this kind of might is an iffy thing. The rational part of me—the part not wanting to satisfy some primal bloodlust by seeking vengeance against anyone and everyone having even the most incidental role in the attacks—knows that it wouldn’t take much to push our military machine off the tracks and right into some paranoid fascist oblivion. The old saying about conjuring up the devil then expecting him to behave comes to mind. Still, unless you’re Sontag or Chomsky or some other professional intellect who’s analytical to the point of fucking paralysis, it seems practically impossible to be in this city right now—to experience both its heartbreak and its strength on a day-to-day basis—and not want to strike back with everything you’ve got. Call it the inevitable result of America’s admittedly obscene foreign policy all you want, there’s no justification for what happened here. The furious need to make the guilty pay with their miserable lives may not make sense on every level, but sometimes you just don’t care. Fuck ‘em. Cue the Pantera. Somebody’s getting a goddamned beat-down. I may one day regret this opinion in hindsight—when there’s a lot more distance between myself and the heat of the moment—but for now the fires of rage burn too brightly.

I pull myself out of the tub, towel off and wander out into the open space of my hotel room, which has evolved quite a bit since I moved in last month. First of all, with no end in sight to my status as a mere freelancer, I upgraded to a suite. What the hell. It was as simple as walking downstairs to the front desk—in my robe and slippers no less. At this point, I’m a regular fixture around here. The guy standing still while the crowds move at hyper-speed around him. Guests come and go, but I remain. Just one of the family.

“Hey, Arben,” I whispered, looking around as if I were arranging a drug deal.

The guy behind the counter, an Albanian kid I’d bought a round of drinks for a couple of nights earlier at the hotel bar, leaned forward, smirked knowingly and extended his hand. I gave it a quick shake.

“What can I do for you today, Mr. Pazienza?”

“How about some hookers.”

He drew back, smiling. If you needed any proof as to the vast cultural dominance of hip-hop, all you’d have to do is watch Arben for two minutes. His accent may be Eastern European, but his lingo and gestures are pure South Central. He may as well call himself Sjoop Dogg.

“Aw, bro—this is Jersey. You don’t want the hookers here. For that you gotta go into Manhattan.” He grinned, looking like he was about to break into a freestyle rhyme at any moment.

“Too fucking expensive. Out here they give you a discount.”

“You want discount whores?”

I paused for a moment.

“I have a coupon,” I said blankly.

Arben laughed, which made me feel surprisingly good. It’s easy to take for granted something as simple as being able to make another human being laugh. Of course sandblasting away every part of your personality for months on end has a way of changing that.

“Anything besides sex I can get you?”

“Yeah, actually.” Now I really ducked my head conspiratorially. “Do you have to call the network for authorization to upgrade my room?”

“They’re picking up the tab, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m supposed to.”

I just waited for a moment to see if that was the end of the sentence. It wasn’t. Arben’s smile returned to the subversive smirk.

“But because you bought drinks.”

“God bless you and the good people of your country,” I said through an exaggerated grin. “I won’t even tell anyone about the fat girl who blew you in your car the other night.”

He shot me a why’d-you-have-to-go-there look.

“We’ve got a suite open on five—that okay?” he said.

“Perfect.”

That was last week. What should’ve been a simple move up a floor turned out to be a pretty serious undertaking—namely because I’ve spent the month since my arrival creating quite the home away from home for myself. When I made the questionable decision to embark on this little adventure, I packed only enough clothes for about a week, figuring that if I actually did find any work at the end of the rainbow it probably wouldn’t be an extended tour of duty. Now that it’s been extended indefinitely I needed something to wear, so I took a break between shifts a couple of weeks ago and did what little our idiot president asked of me as an average citizen of America—strong, proud and prone to completely ineffectual gestures with no real sacrifice: I went shopping.

I had to stock up on clothes for more reasons than one. As it turned out, my new body wasn’t having anything to do with most of what I’d brought with me. Everything fit me like a tent, and I have to admit that getting a new and certainly sleeker wardrobe was preferable to the cheaper option: Stuffing my face with Twinkies to put the weight back on. I even make time for the hotel gym these days in an effort to keep and perhaps even enhance my girlish figure.

I’ve taken the opportunity lately to throw a little money in another direction as well—one that’s brought me the kind of joy I had almost forgotten about: the Virgin Megastore in Times Square has become like a temple to me, allowing me to revel in the healing power of music. My need to bring a soundtrack back to my life asserted itself not long after I got out of rehab, and seems to grow stronger with each passing day. I even shelled out a few hundred dollars for a mini-stereo system with a CD-to-CD recorder. It now sits on the desk in my room, adding to the image of this place as more of an apartment than a hotel suite. A space like this would easily cost me a small fortune in Manhattan—and here I have a maid, room service and a restaurant and bar right downstairs. As long as the bean-counters at NBC continue their unbridled generosity, I could probably live like this forever.

I pop in a CD and crank the volume knob, watching the digital blue bars on the stereo’s readout magically jump. Seconds later, the room is filled with the crushing guitar of Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American. That’s another thing I love about this room: Thick walls. I barely hear it when my cell phone begins to ring.

“Hello.”

“Hey.”

Great.

“Hi,” I answer back, genuinely surprised. “What’s up?”

Kara doesn’t call just to say hello anymore, so there’s a pretty good chance that this conversation will end with me wanting to crawl right back into the bathtub, this time accompanied by a hair dryer. I turn the stereo down to a reasonable volume and take a seat on the couch, mentally preparing myself. I’m instinctively ready to ball up and make myself as small a physical target as possible, if necessary.

“Well, I want to know what you’re going to do about the money you owe me.”

And there it is.

Having already given her two checks totaling well over a thousand dollars, my first thought is to ask her what she’s talking about. But I already know where this will get me. The response I go with is probably only slightly less combative.

“Hey, Kara,” I over-enunciate. “I’m doing pretty well, all things considered. Thanks for asking. But enough about me—how are you?”

“Funny.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“My parents helped pay to move me out. I have to give it back to them.”

“Well wasn’t that a kind gesture on their part,” I deadpan. “And my parents helped pay to move me out after your parents helped pay to move you out. They also saved my worthless ass. In other words, on the payback priority list, the people who were actually there for me come first.”

I recognize the spiteful huff on the other end of the line. The one that takes the place of spitting out the word typical, yet serves the same purpose. Scornful bitterness. This conversation is most definitely not going to end well.

These days, my general disposition when it comes to my wife is overpowering sorrow and sadness. For some reason, however, I’m feeling feisty this morning. She’s being especially hostile, and I’m in especially no fucking mood to take it.

“Ah yes, the condescending sneer. I know it well. You should patent that. Maybe get your own infomercial.”

“I knew I was wasting my time,” she says.

“You mean by calling or by marrying me in general?”

“Good one.”

“Thanks, I practice in front of the mirror.”

There’s no denying that we each have a strange respect for the other’s verbal sparring ability. It’s part of what first attracted us to one another. We always knew and accepted that if the day ever came when we turned the heavy weaponry we normally point at the rest of the world on each other, the result would be mutually assured destruction. Now the doomsday scenario is here and it sounds like Hepburn and Tracy on crystal meth. If sarcasm truly is the humor of the lazy, she and I are practically comatose.

“No, marrying you was a good learning experience,” she shoots. “I mean, if I can put up with an irresponsible junkie I can handle anything, right?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Kara—you apparently couldn’t put up with one for very long,” I shoot back.

“Long enough to watch half the shit in my house disappear. Did you get it all back from the pawn shop before you left L.A., by the way?”

Ouch.

“No, some of it’s still there. Swing on by and help yourself to it. Tell them I send my regards.”

“No thanks. I made one trip there—that was enough,” she says with vicious contempt, reminding me with absolute moral authority of the incident that broke the back of our relationship once and for all and led her to move out less than forty-eight hours later.

Well, you walked right into that one, stupid.

I wince—exhale through a grimace.

That’s the coup de grace and she knows it. The champ hits the canvas with a satisfyingly resonant thud.

As if to punctuate the deafening silence in the aftermath of her knock-out blow, the song on the stereo ends. I hear the mechanical click of the CDs shuffling, a pause, then the hypnotic electronic rhythm and piano opening of PJ Harvey’s We Float.

I shake my head at the fates piling on like buzzards on a carcass. “Fucking perfect,” I say.

“Look, Chez, I didn’t live with it because I didn’t have to,” she continues.

“So I guess you zoned out during that part about ‘in sickness and in health?’” I say, barely more than a murmur.

“I couldn’t take it anymore.”

In the background, I hear Polly Jean Harvey’s world-weary voice over the music:

"We wanted to find love. We wanted success. Until nothing was enough. Until my middle name was excess."

“What do you mean anymore? It’s not like you stood by me offering love and support. You spent months screaming that I was a fucking loser, then took off when I went to get help—when I needed you most, incidentally.”

“You have no idea. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I can imagine, Kara,” I say, more defeated than anything else. “I’ll give the Nobel people a call and make sure you’re on one of their short lists.”

“Do you know what I did for two weeks straight while you were gone?”

I can hear her moving around her apartment. The telephone shifting. I imagine her getting ready to go to work. I say nothing.

“I cried,” she says.

“I remember. I’m sorry.”

“I know you are, but that doesn’t change things.”

“You know something? I don’t think I’m selfish because I wanted and needed you during a time that I was desperate and alone.”

“No, you’re selfish for a whole shitload of other reasons.”

I can’t argue with that.

Polly Jean sings:

"You shoplifted as a child. I had a model’s smile. You carried all my hopes. Til something broke inside."

“I never stopped loving you—ever. I was a slave to something that wouldn’t let go of me. It turned me into a monster. But I needed help and I got it. All I’ve ever asked for is the chance to make things right with you,” I say.

“Yeah, but you did it to yourself. Nobody made you do heroin.”

“You think I don’t know that? I take full responsibility. Christ, that’s what practically made me a pariah in rehab—I wasn’t willing to give myself a pass. Yes, addiction is a disease because it’s degenerative and after awhile there isn’t a damn thing you can do about what’s happening to you—but nobody put a pipe in my mouth and a gun to my head to begin with. I did that all by myself, and I have no excuses.”

“Yeah, but you don’t take responsibility because you’re not willing to accept the consequences,” she says, making what I have to admit is a decent point.

“So the only way to effectively learn my lesson is to lose the woman I love? I’m sorry, I don’t think the punishment fits the crime. I shouldn’t have to pay for nine months of stupidity for the rest of my life.”

“You’re so fucking thick-headed that you think everything should just go back to normal,” she shouts.

“Are you kidding me? What the hell is normal right now? We’re three-thousand miles apart and the whole fucking world’s turned upside down,” I say, standing and walking to the window to look out onto the shattered Manhattan skyline.

Polly Jean:

"This is kind of about you. This is kind of about me. We just kind of lost our way. We were looking to be free."

“Look, you’ve got enough on your plate right now. You really can’t be dwelling on this. Just do your job, stay healthy—” She pauses, then adds with bizarre emphasis: “Work the steps.”

Hearing her mechanically parrot this phrase makes me chuckle as I continue to stare out at the city—my adopted home. The words roll off her tongue as if the unspoken next thing out of her mouth should be: “Whatever the hell that means.”

“That almost sounded sincere,” I say.

I hear her sigh powerfully. She’s had enough.

“I’ve put together an itemized list of what you owe. I’ll e-mail it to you.”

That’s Kara: A calculator where her heart should be.

“You wanted this, not me. You left—and you took everything in my life with you. I’d say we’re even.”

“Just look it over and get back to me. I’ve gotta go.”

She hangs up before I can say anything else—specifically for that reason.

Polly Jean’s voice turns hopeful and dreamy:

"But someday, we’ll float... Take life as it comes."


Photo Credit: Ville Miettinen