Crazy for Tryin'

Crazy for Tryin'

She had certain genius instincts for music.  When pushed during interviews, she giggled and feigned ignorance.

"I tell him to do all the fast songs slow, and all the slow songs fast. He thinks I'm brilliant," Their eyes met and they both agreed on this superficial creativity. But there were hours of trial and error behind them.

He wanted her to try the Patsy Cline song.  Pushed and pushed, knew she could do it.   She wanted to do it sped up, as a joke.  Somehow that version caught on and became a joke.  A classic, and easy encore.

But when they were first breaking it in, she was still fragile.  Smiling, but never far from tears.  That was the tricky issue with music, sometimes you do a song so much that finally you begin to actually listen to it.

After doing it uptempo, he asked her to slow it down.  With lots of air around her, suddenly the meaning came brilliantly clear.  She WAS crazy after all.  In love with someone who could never return her love.  There was no hiding behind the fairy tales, him as a prince in a tower locked away.  He was on heavy medication, in therapy, working to get to a place where he can even be around people.  She needed to stop hoping that she could break through.  And he was bringing her into his world of crazy.  It was the real word, a word indicating madness, losing your head in a literal fashion.

No more a fun label for what musicians were, or a way of being creative.  "Crazy" equals madness.  And no amount of love songs could make up for that.

She was in tears after a few lines and ran from the room.

The bass player asked what was wrong.  He replied that she was just tired.

And if she was tired of the madness of the young man she was in love with, how long would it take for
her to get sick of him?  How long would it take for his own insanity to come back, the caged animal escaping again?

He couldn't break the news of his own diagnosis to her.  Maybe he'd be able to keep it in hiding.  Or give her up when it came back.  Right now she was distracted by this other guy.

"She's trying to get over this crazy guy," he said without a hint of irony.

Crazy-Patsy Cline

Don't confront me with my Failures/ I had not forgotten them

When you are on Tour, nothing is entirely private. He found a letter she had written in her bag.  It was dated a week before the Crazy Boy's Suicide.  She had never sent it.

Dear Mr. Man,

I want you to know that everything is forgivable.  I made that commitment to you, to our friendship, all those years ago.

This is probably yet another mistake, writing this letter, holding on to you, going over it all one more time in my mind.  But I won't be sending it.  Which may be another mistake of a different kind.

I'm well aware that you cannot offer what I require in a friendship.  That we have had a series of fights and disagreements.  Repeatedly.  To the point where I cannot remember the good times.  Well, not easily.  (I do remember them, which is-of course, why I'm writing this.)

You love me. But you refuse to admit it.  I love you, and I can't stop trying to prove it.  We do best when neither of us is being stubborn.  Those are the moments I live for.

Your face when we meet.  Your open smile when you shake my hand.  When push comes to shove, you always come through.  I just can't keep shoving you.

As always, I'll wait for you to come to me.  Even if it doesn't happen this time, which is entirely likely, I'll keep waiting.

You are right (as usual) that I have my own issues.  There's been so few successes, I cannot afford to give extra kindnesses away to other people.  Especially if they are not in a position to give back.

When I was a child, and there was something to terrible to contemplate, I used to imagine it inside of a steel box.  Locked, wrapped in more steel mesh.  Put into a trunk, tied with ropes and chains.  Dumped into the ocean.

I imagine your heart.  There is a lock, but also a key.  A box, small but highly reflective and easy to find in a stream.

When you are ready to be found, you can come to me.

Love,

Me

These Days by Jackson Browne

If it was a straight mind you read/we wouldn't have known you all these years

If it was a straight mind you read/we wouldn't have known you all these years

The first time it happened, she was slightly stunned.

"Happens to the best of us," he grinned, completely unfazed at the change in her.  She was struck completely silent.  Trying to remember an obscure word ("Gregorian, GREGORIAN!! Damnit!"), she went from her precarious perch as a devoted but intellectual fan, to yet another human falling victim to his Medusa stare.  He quickly recognized the syndrome and indicated to his handlers to move the Stone Girl along.  She had driven 250 miles for her five minutes, and lasted for only 30 seconds.

She also suspected it was related to her penchant for losing the power of speech on her way to orgasm. She had noted her ability to talk, make conversation, offer minor corrections during the escalation, but at some point she was elevated to a place beyond words.

Her sexual excitement levels coincided (incongruously enough) levels of a video game.  Boring lovers barely brought her to the second level.  After a certain number of points, it was standard to promote someone just for persistence.  The best lovers (and inspirations) were so skilled that she got to victory screens quickly and suddenly, digital fireworks and endless rolling numbers.  Standing in front of his smile, she found herself mortified yet enjoying the thrill of her most successful game to date.

Years later, she watched him retract his smile from the world.  There comes a time when sex is not only no longer exciting, but also irrelevant.  Add his bipolar instincts and the fans were most certainly all doomed.

He was performing but completely without charm or vulnerability.  Pinocchio going through the motions, but with the animating spirit of Chucky.  Allowed himself to be posed as a prop for pictures, hating them as much as they loved him.  "Done. Done. Done." was all he kept saying, trying to end the dream for everyone as quickly as he could.

She watched him, and she watched the fans.  Wishing there could be a way to stop him.  Better to keep him as a fantasy than to meet this version of reality.  There was the stereotypical bitter rock star, but this was him beyond the drugs, beyond the alcohol, into his Dark Soul.

To whom much is given . . . much is destroyed as well.


Dear Mr. Fantasy by Traffic

***Read at Writer's Group, June 18

"Oh lord, I can't remember if it's September or July"

"Oh lord, I can't remember if it's September or July"

Sometimes the enormity of the country astounded her.

All the stories in every apartment window, in every car.  "Each time 2 or more are gathered in my name", 2 or more are a church service.  This human drama, worship of life.  The miracle of conversation.  Of friends and history, all the things you take for granted.

And music on the radio.  Sometimes you forget and get stuck on your iPod. But then you turn the radio on.  A new song by a favorite singer that you had never heard before.  Bringing back such a specific flavor of air.  That was the sound of 1972.  All these moments, before and happening now.

Being on tour, you get a strange sense of detachment, almost pathological.  Like a reporter in a war zone.  In a war zone that is your home country.

How did all those people create a life?

What was she missing, sitting here watching the sunset?  Taking an act around, frozen in concept, fun-cure, but static in its own way.  Looking at him as he crashes on his friend's couch.  An empty apartment in NYC.  Other people's lives.  They want to be on your stage, in your skin.  And you want . . . what?

When will you feel as if you own your life?  Is it a wedding ring?  The signature on a mortgage?  A PhD?  A weekly paycheck?

There were too many days of wandering.  She "lost the plot", according to the English saying.  When you go crazy from not being able to remember who you are or what your goals are.  But she wondered if she had ever had known.

Wherefore and the Why by Gordon Lightfoot

"I Say I'll Go Through Fire"

"I Say I'll Go Through Fire"

Sitting in their hotel room.  She's crying.  Tracing the lip of her water glass.

He doesn't know whether to attribute this to her lovely stubbornness or her own version of insanity.  What about her attracts the Crazies?  Why does she let herself seek them out?  And then fall for them?

He first thought that her mood swings were her period. Because that's what she told him.  Eventually, she confessed about the Guy.  How she was in love with him.  Even though this idiot Guy usually only communicated to her through emails.

"Is the sex good, at least?"

He was hoping for a laugh, a break in the tension. For her to deny any sex.  He wanted her to be a virgin.  Or a whore. Or both.

"We don't have sex.  He can't.  He's impotent."

He wanted to ask about more details.  But he didn't have the heart.  He wanted to recommend- or suggest alternatives, or offer advice.  This was worse than he had suspected.  This man got her with his heart.

Her story was inconsistent.  The last time, she had said it was incredible.  And cried harder.  Something about cyber sex.  Or her imagination.  Which made him worry even more.

"Crazy He Calls Me" sung by Anita O'Day

Then Why The Hell Are You So Sad?

" 'Never stick your dick in Crazy and never let Crazy stick his dick in you'  Isn't that how the saying goes?"

This was way before he had even thought to tell her, way before he let it become relevant to the conversation.  Besides, he was fascinated by how she dealt with "Crazy".  He wanted to know how she'd deal with him when the time came.  Her first rule: Know the rules, and break them.

"Is he Crazy?"
"Mixed-Bipolar.  He was diagnosed at 25.  Some big "Episode", which he doesn't talk about.  A bunch since then.  And he's chosen to live his life very carefully.  He's very accomplished, but has very few friends,"
"And you like him because he's accomplished or because he could still do with some rescuing?"
"Honestly, it started out as both,"  She went into some long reverie while he tried to look attentive and consume his diner veggie burger.  It had a coating of breading and oil, which rendered the whole thing inedible.  But it was either this or go back to meat. He'd rather stay hungry.

"So the short of it is, you are still in love with him,"
"Yep.  Although I know better.  And I don't even want to be.  But nobody's seen him in a month. And he's started to write to me again,"
"You let him?"

There were so many answers in her eyes.
I'm not as mad at him anymore.
He doesn't have anyone else.
But I love him.
He'll always have me in an emergency.

"It's a pattern," she said, putting down her luscious burger.  "He's not sleeping well. He's agitated and quick to anger.  He accuses other people of mental illnesses-"
"Is he right?"
"Yes, that I'm neurotic and depressed and could use some therapy.  But he's approaching another "Episode", and I want to be there for him,"
"From 2500 miles away?"
"I'm in touch with his therapist.  In case he goes overboard..."
"Suicide?"
She looked him in the eye.

"He's talked that way before.  Now, I think he's just full of energy, not violence.  Maybe. He didn't tell me what happened last time. His cycles are getting shorter.  Maybe it's like giving birth, when the contractions get shorter, something's going to happen,"
"What happened last time?"
"He got mad at me a few months ago.  Cut me off.  Now he's ready to see me again, eager, he's in a Manic phase.  All the contact I wanted when he was a block away. Now,he wants to talk, to write.  I can't keep up with his emails.  And he's not sleeping."
"Do you really think it's helpful to him or you?"
"The important thing is that he's talking to me!  He's reaching out."
"And when he stops?"
"It's a relief.  I prefer it when he gets angry at me, when he pulls away."  She stopped and picked up her burger again. " 'It's not the man, it's the ghost', we have to finish that song."
"I have a new one for you, "How do you Unlove Somebody", the opposite of the Love Potion song trope."
"That's funny.  Hmm, I can imagine sitting there and not being able to drink it"

He had his answer there.  Once she got hooked on someone, she couldn't get out.  They sat there, chewing on their burgers, both their minds with someone else.


"If it makes you happy"-Sheryl Crow

Button up your overcoat

Button up your overcoat

When they were both still young and healthy, walking on a cold May night, he turned to her. A breeze, his open face close to hers, making a big sweet production about doing up the top button of her famous blue raincoat, the one at the collar, which was more for fashion than against the cold.

There was the scent of upcoming rain, and blossoming lilacs. And he brushed his thumb against her bottom lip, and he kissed her. Long after it was all washed away from their relationship. A tender kiss among friends.

She would remember that funny little moment, wheeling his wide open broken and blank eyes around the neighborhood.

You're the only real friend I have. He'd say. Pissing her off, him treated so well, get being a friend to him and not vice versa.

All the first times he had in store for her. The first time he called her by his first wife's name. The first time he called her his daughter. The first time he talked about her in the third person, without recognizing her for herself.

She saw her life skittering along the surface of his, like skimming stones along the shores of Peters pond. Eventually, she'd bounce back in.

He had scared off so many people. The worst part was him never knowing about her last acts of kindness towards him.

But now, these last days, he looked up from the monster hospital bed in his dining room, his face open turned towards the sun, sensing the lilacs she picked for him. And he knew.



You Belong to Me-Ruth Etting

I Met A Man

"How could you say that to me?  I've seen every show you've done in the past 2 years!"  The shriek came from a woman, especially thin and brittle.  Her voice was sudden violent microphone feedback, the sonic boom of a speaker getting too close.  She was dressed somewhat like a pinata, and hovered, debating her position.

He was sometimes cruel to the fans.  Very cruel.

He kept sitting in the rock star seat, looking down and saying, "It's the truth".  He had a smile on his face, an evil grin that appeared only when he let the friendly mask fall.  He knew or imagined the other fans in line would protect him, as would the male bodyguard/sound guy.  But it was like staring down the barrel of a gun.

There was a somewhat regular, somewhat devoted and determined group of fans, who were "regulars".  If the road were a local bar, you could walk in and have everyone know your name.  But these would show up in ANY town.  East Coast, West Coast.  He long ago learned not to be surprised.

The pinata woman was lately a faithful fan, bringing friends, bringing money to their pitiful tour.  Her larger life narrative was being built, moment by moment, something about getting stronger.  Left her abusive husband.  No job.  Not enough money to go on vacation AND her 3 kids, but she came to every show on the weekends.


The woman wouldn't be consoled, and was still ready to fight.  He looked around sheepishly, hoping to be rescued.  His Sound man had deserted him.  The other fans were dropping out of line.  It had the potential to turn into a riot.  He let the woman scream; her spittle flying through the air like a Shakespearean actor's.


The girl put down her long longed for tuna sandwich.  On that hot summer night, she became a witness again.  A familiar scene, him flipping out in his quiet way.  Not quite ending in violence.  Daring to piss off the people who loved him. To reject them, just because he could.  Kicking a puppy, tearing off the wings of a butterfly, tough love, maybe.  Shaking off the hangers on.  Renouncing his position of idol.  Of fetish object, the cheshire smile in every photograph.  The empty cipher.  It made her stomach churn when he renounced character.

She abandoned him as well.

She ran.

Took a set of stairs, and then another.  Saw access to a rooftop, jumped up the metal stairs, careful to place the brick in the doorway.  Just in case the door locked.  The kind of detail he'd be clueless about. He never pays attention to the details.  To the people.  He was smooth onstage tonight, which meant that  he didn't take his meds.  He gets strangely centered and ego-centric.  Textbook case of a victim of fame.  Feeds the ego.  He's normally cautious and nervous, overcareful and slightly clumsy.  He usually takes care with the fans. Similar mental illness diagnoses.

She literally couldn't stomach this behavior.  Standing at the back edge of the roof, she leaned over and heaved the half sandwich she had eaten.  She had been starving and was sorry to lose her day's only meal.  But nothing about the situation was appetizing anymore.  Her car was in the parking lot, she'd have to go back into the performance space to get to her bag and keys, but she could just drive off.  And not look back.

She couldn't take it anymore.  Sick of being an apologist for a mentally ill, mean, mean mean old man.  Her last argument, when he doesn't take his meds, he may talk smoother, he may look more composed, but his music loses the light.  The Glow.  She was along for the ride because of that one delicate True Thing.  She should have predicted. Tonight was smoother, he knew the crowd would be smaller.  A sell-out show the day before, then barely enough asses to cover the front section.  All his music was terrible tonight.  No magic, he forgot lyrics, but there was no generosity coming from the audience to help him.   Was it bad that she preferred him honest, weak, vulnerable, caring, sensitive and less of a performer?  His secret.

She heard someone coming up the stairs and a loud bang as the door shut behind.  The figure lit a cigarette in the distance.  She knew it was him by his thin outline against the neon in front of the hall.  She snuck up on him out of revenge.  A desire to be evil.  She punched him on the shoulder.

"Shit! You scared the...."
She began punching him harder, slapping, hitting.  He held his arms up for protection but didn't try to hit back.

They ended the fight when she was tired.  He offered her his cigarette, once he found the glowing ember on the macadam.  She shrugged.  Sat down.  He did too.  They sat for a while, not saying anything.

"I hate it when you turn on people
"She was getting to like this a little too much, she said . . ."
"You didn't have to be an asshole,"
"Maybe not, but if you give them a reality check, every now and then they force themselves to move on. Don't underestimate the power of revenge,"
"She has a history.  This is all she has; you're a figure to  . . . "
"She fixated on me because its easy.  Because it feels safe.  Sometimes you have to let the kid burn themselves on the hot stove so they'll stay away from real fire in the future,"
She began to laugh,  "That's the sickest thing I've ever heard,"
They laughed together.  A good, silly long laugh.

"You ready to go back down?"
"I'd love to finish my sandwich, but they probably bussed the table by now"
"C'mon"
"Wait, when you came up, did you happen to see the brick that was-- oh never mind.  You go down and I'll meet you in a minute,"

He shrugged and left.
He circled back a moment later.
"We're locked out up here,"  he sat back in his spot.

She lay back, looking up at the dark blue sky.  There was a moon and more stars than you'd expect with all the neon around them.

==
"I couldn't have predicted this to be my life. I thought there were milestones, specific targets.  Fame, fortune, money.  But the whole road is bumpy.  You are always making it up as you go along.  I was her. I AM her."
"Yeah, but you haven't been diagnosed with Aspergers."
"Nope.  Bipolar,"
"Right."  Of course, always attracted to the crazies.  Enough to make her feel crazy.  Everything, the old patterns, clicked into place.  Nice one day, mean the next.  She was too forgiving.

She wanted her sandwich.

They looked up at the stars, he told her some story that she'd been dying to hear.  She faded off into sleep, struggling to listen, letting his words turn surreal in her dream.  Always a hint of danger.  Wanting to love and be open, but knowing that she had to keep holding a fence up in front of her, not knowing the reason, only knowing the duty.

They both woke up with a start when they were nearly kicked in the face with the Sound guy's boot.  He nearly tripped searching for them.  They still needed to pack up.

==




 And even though she prided herself on never looking shocked, she was amazed at the lengths people would go.  Literally and figuratively.

She was always nice.  He was sometimes . . . cruel.  Crueler than he needed to be.  Cruel because he was used to it, and knew they would bounce back-even if he offered some tough love.  Enormously large women would offer the deepest secrets of their life.  And he would laugh at them.  Dangerously skinny girls with no social awareness would tell a story about their history of sexual abuse, and the next time he would see them, he would only respond, "I don't care,"

She tried to run crowd control, but overhearing some of these conversations, she'd abandon him to the masses.  Her job was to help facilitate sales, to make sure that she was not identified as "The Girlfriend", to be the human side of the equation.  But she couldn't help to scrape the fans up off the floor when he was tired and vicious.


FERRON: The greatest concert she had ever been to.  Not his.  A feminist from the 1970's, the butch queen of a generation.  Had practically retired from performing, but did maybe 2 gigs a year.  She produced the show, in a giant church.  Immediate sell-out.  Hordes of self empowered women came through the doors.  Everyone wanted her to be Good. And she was.  Everything was fine, but maybe 5 songs in, things started to crack.  She lost the words.  Just her and her guitar.  Then it was just the guitar, and then that stopped.  "I've forgotten this next line!"  she said with a laugh.  Someone called it out to her.  Generous.  She continued, but it happened again. And again.  And for ANY other performer, you could have thrown in the towel.  Declared them a has-been, not worthy of their attention.  But this crowd was generous, giving, wanting to be supportive of her and each other.  She had been there for them, giving them coming out words, her own belief in herself easily transferable to them. The single best concert ever.

Stars and the Moon Audra MacDonald

Things We're All Too Young To Know

He had gotten up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, which for him was dawn.  Out of habit, he pulled the dingy plastic curtains aside to make sure the rental car was still there.

There was a lonely figure on the picnic table in the distant green area across the parking lot.  It might have been Her.  Heck, it might have been a man from that distance.  He stumbled back into bed, proud of himself for accomplishing his mission while still keeping one eye squeezed shut.

A few hours later, he tried calling her.  After the second time, he knocked on her door.  It pushed open.  At first he thought the room was empty, but then he saw the top of her head, peeking out between the nightstand and the bed.  She was on the floor, fully dressed in jeans and stuff from the night before.

"He's gone.  He's just gone, " she said.

She looked drunk, or stunned, or like a child.
"That Guy?"
"They couldn't identify him.  He was so messed up,  blood and stuff everytwhere.  He had left his backpack by the side, that book that I got him in New Haven, remember the poetry?  It was in there.  They called me,"
"I'm so sorry. "
"Y'know, ages ago, I think I used to think I saw you in him.  Or him in you.  Something about the way he wore his hair, and this innocent look, y'know.  You somehow became so much yourself, and when he was left behind, which was good-I don't regret that- he just turned into this vague memory of himself.  All these things I never knew about him.  I'm amazed by how little I don't remember."

He sat on the bed, commiserating.  He wanted to hug her, to rub her back.  But she didn't make a move to get up.   He let her talk.  He lay on the bed, with his hands behind his head.  He thought about all the morning-after-suicides that he had lived through in his life.  The childhood picture of him and his best friend, eating cheese sandwiches, his friend smiling like the way he remembered.

The door was left open on the Northern California morning, they stared out, watching the occasional car pass.

"Sometimes I think about how scary it is, how everyone is going to die.  I wonder what would happen, I mean how we'd react to everything differently, if instead of measuring our lives by our age, by how long we'd been here.  If we could turn to each other and ask, "How much time you got left?"  And some people would say, "40 years-I can totally drive you to the airport and get stuck in traffic!"  and others would say, "2 years, 5 months and 4 days, I've stopped eating and sleeping"

He laughed.  She was still trying to entertain him.  She was conscious of holding back, of not taking up too much of his listening time.  He'd listen to everything she had to say.  For as long as it took.

"Dammit!  I knew there was something fishy about him coming to visit me in Idaho.  Who goes to Idaho?  He had driven from . . . SHIT!!  Michigan, he was telling everyone goodbye!  Dammit! Dammit Dammit!!!!!"

"Regrets are useless.  He did what he wanted to.  You couldn't have stopped him"
"I know.  I've been mourning him ever since I met him.  He was never THERE.  Never THERE there. Always on emails, just out of reach.  That whole night, I kept expecting something.  I kept wanting to reach out and touch him.  He wouldn't even let me hug him.  Do you think maybe he was already a ghost?"
"He's been a ghost this whole time"
"It's not the man, it's the ghost."
"That sounds like a song,"
"Shit, we don't have a show tonight, do we? I don't want to hear music. I can't imagine ever singing again."

She rubbed her eyes.  He looked at the tips of his loafers, the ones that needed a trim to make them not look so cheap.

"No worries, kid.  The only thing you have to do is load yourself into the car, I'll do the rest."
"Ok.  Thanks.  Can we just stay here a little longer?  Everything has turned to rubber."

He looked at her, knowing she was well past 40, knowing there was nothing worse than this.  He nodded.  She nodded.  He turned away so she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes.

*The Book of Love by the Magnetic Fields (1990)