I should have known better with a girl like that Nov. 18, 1985

 

 

I should have known better coming back here.

The twisted paths of the dream world somehow finds a way to influence current reality.

I bugged my boss at Fotomat for more hours and find myself sitting in this booth across from the Smithfield and the Red Lobster where Fran and I used to dine.

This would not have hit me so hard had I not been dreaming a lot about her over the last few weeks, painful dreams full of desire.

Now nearly a year later, the craving for her comes.

When I was in the local used book store I found the last volume of her favorite book series, one more coincidence, I suppose, thought good old Dr. Thomas would tell me there is no such thing.

All the threads seem to tie together, a mind connects things like these to weave a painful tapestry.

To other people, none of this would make sense, otherwise unrelated details I put together in my head.

I feel the ache as my mind strolls up pathways Fran and I often wandered in the past, physically there now, as I look across the highway, filled with the memory of that cold rainy day while we waited for the crowds to subside so we could share a table, waiting out the bus load of tourists that had arrived there before us.

I’m not saying those were good times. Dealing with Fran’s addiction was among some of the most painful experiences of my life, and for her as well.

Her pain was so intense she sometimes blamed me for it, when I was not to blame, her rage sometimes elevated to the point of hate.

She blamed me for making her illness worse, and perhaps there is plenty of blame to go around, some even to be shared by her other lover, Bill, with whom I shared her affections.

Fran always wanted more of me than I was willing to give and so felt the need to get what I didn’t give her from someone else.

I constantly complained I needed space, time to write, while she wanted that time for herself.

Perhaps this was selfish of me, insisting I retain and environment where I could create, perhaps it was wrong. I have always been greedy in that respect, insisting that I get what I need before I give anything to anybody else.

Maybe it was doomed to fail from the start, and despite all of the amazing sex, and the legitimate tenderness, we could never have made it work, she always needing to go back to Bill, and the cocaine.

We had a chance at one point when I moved into the larger of the apartments on Passaic Street, mistakenly assuming she would want to move in with me when she got back from her road trip to Austin, only to find out she did not when she got back.

Maybe it was her fault things soured after Pauly moved in with me and she changed her mind, and I stuck to my promise with Pauly – even though he assumed I would pick her over him and had started to pack up his things to move.

Maybe, it was because I took the night job baking at the mall, which completely screwed up our time together – but I needed the money and could not make ends meet working Fotomat during the day.

But truth be told, Fran’s pain came before that and continues after we have broken up.

I miss her, but I fully understand why she needed to leave. She needed much more love than I could supply her, and more passion than any one man could give.

Strangely, I was most comfortable when she went back and forth between me and Bill (sometimes on the same night), each of us giving her the amount of passion she needed, and yet, even that was not enough.

I miss her now because I truly loved her then and needed her in my life. Yet I was not willing to sacrifice my whole life to fill the endless vacuum in hers.

I miss doing things with her like walking in the woods with her and laughing, sometimes making love in the woods when nobody was looking.

I felt more comfortable around her than anyone ever in my life. I think she felt the same way, looking back at the time from when we first met to when she took off to Texas as a near perfect time.

Texas ruined everything, from the painful moment when I watched her take off from my vantage point inside the Fotomat booth to those weeks wondering what she was up to because she didn’t write.

I felt abandoned. The lack of contact heightened my defensiveness. I had allowed her to get to close, too intimate, and I was paying the price.

We had spent so much intimate time together that when she was gone, I had a hole in my chest I had no way to fill, longing for her in her absence, aching for the time when she would return and we could pick up where we left off, which alas was not to be.

 

1985 Menu


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