9:47 a.m. - 2005-06-12
No Words For This Rant
Tom and I found a beautiful little chapel attached to a church that neither of us set foot in either before or after the wedding. It had some kind of amibiguous Christian name, First Something Church. The look I was aiming for was fairy princess and I guess I achieved it because, when the pastor saw me he made some such comment. My dress was white with lots of mesh and cut on the bias so that it hung in uneven points like something Stevie Nicks would wear. I had a circle of white flowers and babies breath around my head. White satin ribbons streamed from the wreath, intertwining with my long golden hair. Barbara had a reception for us at her house in Canoga Park. There were cold cuts and potato rolls and Kosher pickles. I had ordered the cake from a picture and when we picked it up, it was Tijuana-garish. It looked more pink than white in real life. And there were little pearls and cherubs and edible banners all over it the two small tiers. It tasted okay. Honeymoon night, we went to see Rambo II and came home to sleep in our same bed. Nothing special really. The next day, we left for our honeymoon in Waikiki. Neither of us had been to Hawaii or anywhere for that matter. Not accustomed to flying, I was terrified the entire six hours while Tom read his hobbit kind of thing the whole flight. No conversation to speak of. When we finally arrived, I swear I had mascara racing stripes down my cheeks from all the crying. I got off the plane, took one look at Honolulu and concluded that the plane had somehow turned around, depositing me back in L.A. after maybe cleaning it up a bit. I was frazzled from the trip and very outspoken about my first impression of Hawaii. Tom said little, but seemed intrigued by the cars slowing down to wave little greenish-brown baggies at the tourists. They were singin' his song, his first impression being favorable. The hotel we stayed in was tall and several blocks from the beach. The room was spartan, but clean. One thing I noticed right away about Tom that I had never paid attention to before was that he was careless and disorganized. I soon became aware of the fact that if I didn't keep track of our room key, our money, our directions and everything else, we were lost in chaos. Tom, I think, had a post office box in Chaos and didn't seem at all disturbed by the constant condition of helplessness and futility. He was what you could call 'laid back'. He sauntered along and the next thing that happened was, well, the next thing that happened. What about that was difficult? So I took on the role of frantic one, believing somebody had to do it or we would be literally lost at sea. And I didn't like it. I felt that I had to use my brain more on my damn honeymoon that back at work. I was drained and exhausted. And I felt completely inept at all Hawaiian activities except possibly shopping. I could not properly use the snokling gear but instead gasped for air until I decided that I could see the yellow fish just as well from the clear surface of the water. Tom, on the other hand, was in his element. He would float until his skin puckered there at Hanauma Bay. All I saw of him was his puffy butt as the saltwater expanded his trunks and the black protruding snorkel stick. I lay on the sand crying and wishing I was back at the Flyaway Bus in Van Nuys. I was not a fun bride. Strolling the touristy streets, we were relentlessly pursued by vendors selling time shares and locals hawking pot. Tom followed one down an alley and paid five bucks I could have used for hibiscus flip flops for a bag of stale oregano. Towards the end of the six night five glorious days vacation, I started to like it. How like me. We started to try to figure out ways to stay just a little longer. Leave it to Tom. One day, probably our next to the last day on the island, Tom noticed something in the street. It proved to be an abandoned purse. It proved to be an abandoned purse with four hundred dollars cash. I would never have noticed it. Never. I didn't walk around looking down and I don't think I would have picked it up if I did. Tom removed the money and we returned to the hotel, sitting on the bed like bank robbers dividing the spoils. He knew that I would probably want to turn it in to the police and wait for a possible reward. I knew he would want to spend it and never look back. So what did I do? I left it up to him because by that time I secretly wanted to stay, too. Leaving it to Tom was the same thing as my sticking a gun in an old lady's face and grabbing her only remaining possession, a worn carpetbag. It just was. But I was gaining some real expertise in telling myself whatever I wanted to hear and that is what I did. Tom bought some real pot. I bought some Clarins fake tan. We paid for another day or two at the hotel, coming back a few days late with brown faces (his real) and lots of very convincing pictures to testify of our good time. The evening after we returned, I was frying up my famous really greasy tacos and humming some Cyndi Lauper ballad when the phone rang. It was the principal from the school where I worked. There's no other way to say it. "Matthew is dead," I heard. My mind ached. I could not integrate this hideous intrusion, make it fit into the scent of seasoned ground beef and corn tortillas bubbling in the pan. I was too stunned for the tears that could never begin to express the sudden searing pain. My body went limp, my motions ineffectual, useless arms gesturing mid-air. "How?," I begged, when the real question pressing hard against one side of my forehead was "Why?". Why, God? Why, God? Why, God? The answer I told myself was that it was my fault. Trivializing his proposal. My abrupt marriage to Tom. The Hawaii purse. All of it. The pain. The pain I had inflicted. The gruesome selfish pain. Whatever I would be told about the circumstances of Matthew's death, I knew in my deepest heart that I was the cause. Knew it like I knew that one wispy extra long blond hair that always returned on my forearm no matter how many times I plucked it out. No one else saw it. Only I knew. Tom eventually realized that I had received some kind of unexpected news. The tortilla sizzled and smoked, curling at the edges. My eyes blurred hot. Scrunching tight as if to make reality stop. Stop. As if to rewind time and take Matthew's hand in the yellow meadow and walk with him into the very red California sunset. As if to say to God, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Please make it stop". Tom calmly turned off the burners and from across the room yelled, "What happened?". "Matthew is dead". There. I said it. Now it was real. Now there was no turning back. Now the very air turned bright with sparks and hot wet throbs. Now life as I knew it was behind me. Now. I hated now. I longed for then. Any then. I wanted to wake up in my maple crib, looking at that slight crack in the ceiling where the demons threatened to emerge and my daddy would come in and they would flee in terror just because of the way he would do anything to protect me. Anything. I longed to wake up beside Fred. To be bored and lonely in my house on Clybourn Street, Toluca Lake adjacent. I wanted to hear David screaming about his rights in that weird third person sentence structure he was fond of using. I wanted to be dead instead of Matthew. He should be sitting on that wooden fence, smoking with the kids. I should never have entered his life. I should never have entered life at all. I was a mistake. Poison. A baby rattler, scared and taking down everything in my path. Out of control. Alone in my dark, dark soul. "Good. That asshole deserved it", was Tom's eulogy that humid evening in Burbank. And I knew that I was gone. Gone from Tom. Gone from the way I had let my petty wounds trample the likes of Matthew. Just gone.
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