Between the Two Worlds (Part 2)
The Veil
On Wednesday October 15th, I insisted that Rio meet me in person for a formal break up. I chose a bench on the corner of Marcy and Lexington knowing that the spectacle of a woman screaming at a man before noon would be just another morning in Bed Stuy. There, under a yellowing oak, I erupted on him, but my fury didn’t land. Like a dog watching television, it simply wasn’t scanning. When I saw that he was unaffected by my outrage, I realized I would have to resign myself to something more clinical.
He had dropped the loving boyfriend act on the phone the night before, but I still had trouble accepting that he wasn’t even going to pretend to be upset by my pain. Instead, he told me that he was relieved I found out because the whole thing had been really exhausting for him. He admitted that he knew he didn’t experience emotions the same way that others did, but he didn’t see it as a problem. He’d always seen it as a positive thing. Well-adjusted. Useful. I couldn’t argue with that. I couldn’t make a case for the benefits of grief, shock, and shame. The best I could curse him with was that he’d probably never experience love, but in the moment I wasn’t so sure it was much of a curse. I wasn’t so sure that I wouldn’t trade places.
I glided fugue-like around my life over the next couple of weeks, high on what had happened to me, falling back onto my roommate’s cold hard cock, no longer claiming to be someone who understood people. My identity as a highly perceptive person had been obliterated. I wasn’t merely rattled. I hadn’t lost my bearings. I’d just learned that bearings only exist in the mind, that security is merely an illusion. In a way it was a relief to be so humbled. No argument. No contest. I simply got it wrong.
My brief stint as a domesticated animal ended abruptly in disaster, and now I was back in the wild with a vengeance. No decent-looking man was safe. I made out with a handful of strangers, including a married one. I couldn’t begin to care what that meant about me. Maybe I needed more proof that no one belongs to anyone and commitment is a bedtime story for babies.
I was being steered by an unlikely combination of confidence, humility, anger, and the Floating Voice. I was disoriented and bereaved, but at least I’d been disabused of the self-loathing notion that I was unfit for partnership. And never again would I worry that my intuition was fucked. What’s more, my ‘boyfriend’ had been stuffing me with endless custom-fit compliments for the past several months. Oddly enough, the fact that his intentions weren’t pure didn’t diminish the self-esteem I’d gained.
I walked along my avenue one night exhausted from a day of mixed emotions. The trees rustled and crackled in the cool autumn wind. The candy corn smell of over-bloomed mums trailed me. I saw a handsome man at his car. I’d seen him around the neighborhood over the last few years, but I was always caught up in some sordid ‘arrangement’ or another. But now I wasn’t. I was finally open. I nearly parted my lips to say hello, but fatigue stopped me.
You’ll meet him, said the Floating Voice.
So I walked on.
It was late October when I paid a visit to Jax to pick up some weed. Jax was an unhinged mystic. He was a hyper-sexual Pan-like body-builder with a Judo black belt. He trained aggressive rescue dogs by day and maintained order at the local Russian Bathhouse by night. He was an obvious Alpha Male. He was truly ageless, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was in his 40s. I once watched him inject insulin into his ass after gulping three spoonfuls of honey. “It’s a holistic alternative to steroids, and it can kill you if you don’t get the timing right,” he explained. He and his East Village Dinosaur neighbors had been squatting in a building in Alphabet City for so long that the City of New York renovated it and sold it back to them for a dollar. Any given visit entailed a slew of fringe characters and somewhere between 6 and 16 drooling Mastiffs, Pits, and Rottweilers. And though the fact that he was an undiagnosed hoarder made it difficult to sit or breathe in his apartment, it was by all measures protected land. I was safe there.
This time he was hosting two practicing Wiccans. They were a mother-daughter duo who’d been briefed on my heartbreak, either by Jax or one of their contacts in the Spirit Realm. They begged me to let them sort my chakras and I obliged. I was saying yes to all prospects, including the asinine idea that my wounds could be healed by Christine and Mary Doyle of West New Jersey. Came for the pot, stayed for the Reiki.
Christine behaved like a stage-mom, compulsively expounding the magical talents of her daughter as though she were auditioning for the title of Miss Teen Witch. They loved my energy. I know this because they interrupted themselves constantly to say it. They gave me a bar of dragon’s blood soap meant to cleanse the muck of Rio from my psyche. I excused myself to the bathroom to have a moment alone with my gift. It smelled like mulled wine and orange peel, and it was marbled with the crimson sap of the Sangre de Drago tree. The bar was gently bound. It was only hard enough to maintain a solid shape, but it softened under pressure and melted easily onto my skin. I ran one end through water, looked at myself in the foggy mirror, and dragged it from the top of my left cheek bone to the edge of my chin. I stared at the thick streak of mauve on my face. What happened happened, and it wasn’t going away. I smeared it around before dissolving it under the warm water of the faucet. I returned to the den of the Wiccans.
Before I knew it, I was splayed out on the couch while Christine went to work on my shitty energy with a bouquet of smoldering sage. I kept my skepticism to myself for their benefit. They meant well. And I was sort of into the spiritual pampering aspect of it.
“Your leg is floating!” Christine said, “Mary, hold her leg down!” I didn’t feel any floating legs, but I wasn’t expecting to feel much during this bizarre transaction. Jax had made himself scarce. I don’t think this was the first time they’d surprise reiki’d one of his guests.
“Please Spirit, we pray that you send Callie her Divine Mate,” Christine began. All I could think was That’s probably not how that works, but I laid there patiently while they made themselves feel better about my pain. “Spirit, cleanse her of this recent trauma. We ask respectfully that you please send Callie her Divine Mate.” It was all very sweet of them, and who was I to say that this wasn’t a perfectly valid method of finding a life partner? “SPIRIT, WE ASK THAT YOU SEND CALLIE HER DIVINE MATE!”
“She knows him already,” Mary spoke up, seemingly from another dimension.
“She does?!” Christine asked.
“No,” I answered.
“She knows him.” Mary was quietly insistent, and Christine yielded to her.
“Is it the roommate?” Christine probed.
“NO,” I answered. God, Spirit, whoever the fuck, trust me it is not the roommate.
“It’s not the roommate, but she knows him already,” Mary responded in stillness, from the other side.
I couldn’t fathom spending the rest of my days with any man I already knew. It wasn’t my Jiu jitsu instructor. It wasn’t my roommate. It wasn’t that married guy. It wasn’t my friend’s Tinder date she’d passed on to me. We were just three lost girls, high on incense and playing pretend. Still, I appreciated the effort, and I would definitely be using the dragon’s blood soap religiously.
On October 29th, my phone rang.
“Callie, it’s Christine and Mary. We got your number from Jax. We just wanted to say that we love you, especially Mary - she just loved your energy. We wanted to remind you that the veil is the thinnest between the two worlds right now.”
I wasn’t familiar with the phrase, but I understood the sentiment. They were sweet to follow-up. Kooky, but sweet. I thanked them for the call, the care, the Reiki, and the soap. I never heard from them again.
On October 30th, I had a friend date with the gorgeous Michael Gregory, who was only safe from my slut-clutches on account of he was gay. I set out to the West Village to tell him the tale of Rio. I’d sort of gotten the hang of what had happened, and letting the world know became an empowerment tool.
As I began climbing the steps to exit the West 4th street station, I looked up to see that directly above ground stood an old friend from college. He was leaning back against the chain-linked fence that outlined the basketball courts with a hand-rolled cigarette loose in his fingers. He smiled a knowing smile and patiently observed my ascension. If he was even remotely surprised to see me, he gave no indication of it.
I met Matt Dexter in the dorms my freshman year. He was a pot-dealer majoring in Psychospiritual Acoustics and Zen. Exactly the kind of person I’d expect to run into unexpectedly. Matt had the appearance of someone just exiting a mosh pit, but if you looked closer, you could see that he wasn’t all that metal. His tattoos were of sacred geometric patterns and Native American power animals. His bracelets were prayer beads instead of spiked leather. He was surely a Shaman by now. I bet he saw me coming with his third eye. Or maybe the veil was so thin that it was transparent.
“Hey beautiful,” he kissed me on the cheek and enveloped me in his palo santo arms and long grungy curls. We had a short conversation that started in the middle and didn’t quite end. A continuous thread we’d pick up next time we crossed paths.
I walked on, invigorated by the chance encounter. Michael was waiting for me at a cocktail bar with burgundy club chairs, working fireplaces, and bourbon apple cider. We tucked into a corner, and I drew a deep breath and exhaled every detail of the utopian lie I’d fallen for. I was owning the narrative. I was seizing the opportunity to cement the facts and perform my outrage. My download that night was practically a sermon. Reclamation and proclamation.
“You read him to the GODS, sister,” he exclaimed after my big finale. I felt electric. I headed back to the train, empty and full.
Back at West 4th street, the echo of Matt Dexter lingered. I descended the stairs to the arrhythmic stomps and screeches of staccato footwork and the metallic ping of basketballs. I was feeling more like myself, though not at all the old me. It had only been two weeks since the break up, but I had spiraled through so many evolutions that I couldn’t help but feel lifetimes away from it.
I stood on the platform waiting for the train back to Brooklyn, appreciating the sensation of ground beneath my feet when a handsome man caught my eye. It was the guy from the neighborhood. You’ll meet him, the Floating Voice had assured me. And here we were, making good on that cosmic promise. I smiled him an invitation to approach.
It was late. I can’t remember if the platform was empty except for us, or if it just seemed like it. The periphery had fallen away as soon as we locked eyes. We were only standing about 30 feet apart, but his walk toward me was slow and languid, like a good first kiss. An uptown express train bellowed past as he sauntered toward me like he was walking through water. He seemed to recognize me too.
He said cooly, like fate finally had us by the tail, “Now we have to talk.”
To which I replied, “I know you.”
