Scene 6
The Rollercoaster Begins

And why the desperation to spend so much time with this girl? We’ve got to look back again for that.

I was at a point in my life when all my friends were married. No, most of them weren’t happily married, but they were married. Everybody had steady jobs, houses, some had 2.3 kids, the American Dream. My life of adventuring seem to be drawing to a close with me being the only adventurer still interested in adventuring.
“All my rowdy friends have settled down.” the song goes.
So I headed back to school, in part to have a social life again and be amongst single, young people who weren’t ready for the house in the burbs, the minivan, changing diapers. But it was only a matter of time before I’d have to graduate again.
Yeah, I said “have to.”
I loved school, but I couldn’t afford to stay there forever and I still had no idea what I actually wanted to do with my life. It was sort of a mid-life crisis, 20 years early. But then again my roommate and I had decided way back in high school that we were in a constant state of mid-life crisis.
Why do I mention all this? Well, the traditional love story talks about how fuckin’ wonderful the other person is, radiant, perfect, hair of gold, Venus and Aphrodite on earth, etc. etc.
Codependent nightmare.
Let’s face it, she was as much a symptom of my emotions as the cause, as is often the case in reality, if not your classic romantic poem.

I fell for Heather like a demolished building.
I’m not denying her charms. She’s pretty, smart, talented, fun, all the things your red-blooded American heterosexual male wants. And plenty of red-blooded American males wanted her as bad as I did. Every guy she came in contact with wanted a piece of her, and not just in a sexual way.
Every day she got a note, a call, a visit from one of those in pursuit. She’d deny they were what they were, but it takes one to know one and I could spot one a galaxy away. She led them on infinitely, unaware of the damage she left in her wake. One would crash and burn every few weeks, a moth getting too close to the flame, or just getting disgusted and giving up, and a new one would take his place as soon as the extra moment in her purposefully-crowded schedule opened up.
As I said, takes one to know one and I was the best (or is it worst?) of the lot – stubborn in pursuit, yet flexible with her ever-changing attention span.

I denied that her competitors made me jealous. But they did.
More than anything, it just pissed me off that I couldn’t get much of her undivided attention and I blamed it on the hordes of suitors knocking at her door.

But the others in the pack rarely succeeded in getting anywhere beyond casual friendship. I was the only one she’d sleep with as long as we were doing whatever it was we were doing.
Herein lies another semantic challenge.

"Intimacy, n. A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction."
Ambrose Bierce, from The Devil’s Dictionary

What were we doing? At some point I asked. She refused to call it a relationship, wouldn’t use the word “dating” at gunpoint - a serious intimacy-phobe. I even complained about it to my mother.
“Is she worse than you?” my mother asked.
“Worse” I answered, “but I think she’s getting better.”

Heather and I had a lot of fun. Our dates often involved doing something new for one or the other of us. I needed that freshness to make me feel young again, stall my early mid-life crisis a while longer.

"There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill-race in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul."
Robert Louis Stevenson, from The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

And she needed to break away from her routine, from her suitors, from the issues she was always running from but would never name.
She couldn’t have found a safer port in a storm. I’d take any attention I could get from her, no matter how much her hesitation grated on my desperation.

We took a road trip to Miami to see my father. The hours and hours in the car ended up straining our conversation but both of us hated the cold and the comparative warmth of south Florida soothed our nerves.
My father made a perfect host, taking us to fun Cuban restaurants and strange out-of-the-way places.
At night we ran off on our own and had a blast going dancing in a slick-yet-sleazy club in South Beach. The place was packed with gorgeous women draped on ugly, obscenely rich men. The "cocaine cowboy days” had just ended, the tail end of the Miami Vice era, but you could still find a Porsche on every corner with a model-esque woman stepping out of one side and a gorilla crawling out of the other.
We ogled the crowd together, had a few too many drinks and flashed flirty eyes at anyone that would look. I had gotten a few clues in our long conversation on the road that Heather was a pervert like myself.
We stood at the bar eying a beautiful dark-skinned woman next to us. I leaned over and whispered in Heather’s ear “Wouldn’t you like to run your hand up her skirt and feel how hot and wet…”
She moaned, “Stop… please…"
I wasn't sure why she asked me to stop until she added, "You’re getting me all horny!”

We were perfect for each other.

The next day my father took us out on the bay in his sailboat. Heather lounged on the bow like some model from a pop music video, a smile from ear to ear.

We hit the shops later and sat on a curb eating pastry in the 85 degree Florida winter.
“Why do we live in Atlanta?” we asked, dreading the return to our comparatively frozen home.
“Because we’re poor.” came the answer.
Driving home, we hit an ice storm on the edge of town. Back to the cold, back to school, back to life, back to reality…

We spent weeks in class together struggling with drawing. I struggled because it's not something I enjoy doing - I'd rather be sculpting. She struggled because she was determined to perfect her work - she was working towards becoming an illustrator. By night we’d explore Atlanta, and each other. A couple months of passionate sex, fun dates, and learning about art together. Things just kept getting better.

But then it happened. Problem is, it happened so many times they all blur together in retrospect. For some quirky, makes-you-wonder-if-there-isn’t-a-god-after-all reason it always it took place at Po’ Folks, a family-style southern restaurant.
At some point during the week leading up to Po’ Folks I’d push the envelope on our relationship-not-called-a-relationship - make some comment, ask some leading question, imply that we were more than casual friends that liked to fuck.
Take, for example, this conversation:
“Don’t look at me that way.” Heather said, as my eyes drilled holes into her.
I paused for a moment, continuing to look at her “that way.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“Because it makes me...
want to...
melt.”
“Then melt.” I thought, silently to myself, as we broke our stare.
Within a few days I’d find myself in front of a plate of deep-fried food growing cold while she said she wanted to back off. We were moving too fast. She didn’t want to see me on that level, didn’t want to see anyone on that level, just needed time, needed space.
I’d take it, remain as cool on the exterior as the grease congealing on the plate in front of me, and just take it.
“Sure, we can be just friends.” I’d say.
A couple weeks would pass. I’d do a good job of being just casual friends who weren’t fucking.
Then somewhere somehow we’d be naked together again and it would be better than it was before. More passion, more understanding of each other’s bodies, more and more desperation on my part for the Next Step.

On again.

More fun dates. More shared experiences, shared classes, shared hours in bed, closer and closer to calling it something real.
Two months later I’m back at Po’ Folks, a biscuit growing ever-harder in my slightly trembling hand.

Off again.

A couple of weeks of being friends, chatting about her suitors, hours together in class helping each other with assignments, then we’re posing naked for each other’s figure drawing homework assignments, then we’re just naked for each other.

On again.

But I won’t fuck it up this time. I won’t. I’ll stay quiet about my feelings. I’ll just enjoy it for what it is. I’ll…

Let it all out one afternoon, all at once, how could I be surprised it’s…

Off again?

Fuck.

A couple of weeks passed in the off again state. I hit my favorite watering hole with my oldest friend, Brud. We had a few drinks at one bar then decided to head to another. On the way a woman in a Geo pulled out right into me, destroying her tiny car and seriously wrecking mine. But no injuries and the cops clearly pointed fault at her so I didn’t let it put a damper on the evening - we had my car towed off to a shop and caught a ride to the next bar. The joint was packed with folks shakin’ their thangs to some old funk tunes. We grabbed drinks and joined the fray. A bobbing redhead caught my eye and I slunk over and found it was one of my classmates, Sharon.
Sharon wrapped her arms around me, unexpectedly, and told me some girl had been pursuing her all night. I laughed and told her I’d just totaled my car. “No way!”
We slid out of the dance floor and chatted while Brud got shot down by the other ladies in the joint. Eventually he gave up and caught a cab home. I rode with Sharon to her friends’ house where we talked.
“I thought you and Heather were an item?” she asked.
“Uh… no.”
“Well your eyes light up every time she walks in the room.”
I paused, unsure of how to answer before mumbling “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
Sharon and I ended up in bed and had a fun morning. We were both lonely and depressed and the sex just felt good. A couple days later she decided she wanted something serious and long term. I told her I was on the rebound. She wasn’t surprised.
Rebound back to Heather.

On again.

Heather and I talked about the Sharon encounter. Sharon was one of the girls Heather and I had wanted to seduce together.
“What was she like?” Heather asked.
“OK, not spectacular but it was only one night. She has the most amazing flame-orange pubic hair though. It really contrasts against her porcelain-white skin.” I said.
“Wow.”
“I told her you and I wanted to jump her.”
“And?”
“And she asked why we never did anything about it. I told her ‘What could I do? Say ‘Hey, my girlfriend and I want to fuck you!’?’”
We laughed about it together.
Sex was one of those things that could make Heather’s eyes light up instantly - just about any kind of sex. For me it was not such an on-off electric switch thing. Instead it was an ever-present smoldering bed of coals, deceptively calm on the surface but you didn’t want to go poking around or you might start a serious blaze.

“Wow.” Heather had said after one of our first sessions in the sack.
“What?” I asked.
“I’ve just never been with someone so...” she trailed off.
“So...?” I asked.
“You were like... growling.”
“Sorry!”
“No, I like it.”

"My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring."
Robert Louis Stevenson, from The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

I liked it too.
A lot of that serious blaze wasn’t just my sex drive, however. That passion came from my desire for Heather.
Which inevitably led to Off Again.
Same booth at Po’ Folks, same plate of fried chicken getting cold.
Same incredible sex a couple weeks later, same amazing fun dates for a couple months.
The highs kept getting higher, and the lows kept getting lower. The roller coaster was getting rickety, unsafe, and speeding ever faster, utterly terrifying.

You can see the loop coming from the top of the next hill - the one that will make your stomach crawl into your feet, then up into your head, then back down to your feet again, can’t you?

Violent Femmes’ tunes were pretty much the soundtrack of my first trip through college. Their tune Breakin' Hearts hit close to home even years later on my second trip through school:

See that girl
She put me in a whirl
She's got a way of breakin' hearts
Man o man
I wonder if I can
She's got a way of breaking hearts
Seems like she is always
Workin' on the sly
Then she tells her poor man
Good bye
Holy smoke
I wonder if there's hope
She's got a way of breakin' hearts
I will not tarry
I'm askin' her to marry me
Even though she's got a way of
Breakin' hearts

Another meal at Po’ Folks.
You'd think I'd learn to avoid the place.

The next day I was driving to Athens, Georgia, about an hour away from Atlanta, to meet a friend, Lena, a charming Danish girl who was like a sister to me. I cried the whole way, simultaneously wound tight and strung out. I had to concentrate really, really hard to keep myself from driving into the oncoming traffic, and not by accident.

The only thing that kept me from doing it, from driving right into that big tractor-trailer rig coming 70 miles an hour from the other way while I pushed my car over 80 going my way, was knowing Lena would think I’d stood her up. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
I stared past my knuckles, growing white on the steering wheel, let the tears roll down and kept it between the lines as fast as I dared go, knowing every second on that road was another second of temptation to steer off it.

On the roller coaster ride that is my life, I have a tendency to write amazingly bad poetry when the train is on the downswing so skip to the next scene if you're poetry-intolerant.

Push the flesh down past the bones, tired.
And the bones?
Well, they’re weary too
And I've been carrying this heavy head for so many years
So many years
So many years that I can barely recall when it used to carry me.
Now I carry it like the severed head of John the Baptist
On a silver platter, dripping blood
For all the world to see
'Look, look at what used to be me
Now turned into something lifeless and grotesque.'