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| "Man on Fire" by Luís Jiménez |
Author's note: Updated 29 September 2018.
* * *
While I've been saying for a while--for four years at least--that I want to tell you the rest of the story about Cali and me, I can't decide if I'm ready to do so or not. Oh, I can write the words, but can I commit to shaping and completing the narrative? I don't know yet. It feels like it's a long story, a complicated one, but maybe it isn't, and I just need to get on with it.
I was once told by my media professor sister that when we tell stories, we make ourselves the heroes. So I'm torn in telling this tale. I don't want to be the hero of this story. I want to tell the truth, my truth, but as close to an objective truth as possible. Assuming that is possible.
But . . . this is my blog, my space to think, to write, and to advocate for myself. I should be able to tell the story the way I want to, a "fair and balanced" perspective, the "there are two sides to every story" narrative be damned. Even years later, it's hard for me to understand Cali's side. I'm well past wallowing in my pain--a pain borne originally from simple romantic rejection, perhaps the shallowest of pains. Instead, I'm left with an ongoing psychological disturbance, a subtle haunting--a pain borne from something I'm finding much more difficult to explain and escape: Abuse, cruelty, and unfinished business.
What has prompted me to return to this story is that I woke early this morning from a dream about Cali. Yet another one. To my credit, I haven't dreamed about Cali for a long while, probably a couple of years at least. I can't even recall the details of this dream, and I woke up just a couple of hours ago. So the dream wasn't that memorable. But Cali remains so.
For a moment, too, I thought the dream came out of the blue, that there was no reason to prompt any memories. Key dates for memories of Cali are March (his birthday), July in Atlanta (when and where I met him), and late November (when he went away for good).
But then I remembered that Cali went away a couple of times, including sometime in late January or early February, five years ago, when, after talking with him almost daily for nearly a year, he got mad at me about something I said (an attempt to encourage and help him that admittedly probably came across as too Up with People!) and went silent, completely silent, only to reappear, all casual hey-how's-it-goin'?- like, a couple of months later.
But that was the beginning of the end, or perhaps yet another ending in a series of endings. It took me a while to figure that out, and even after his resurfacing those few months later, it still took me a couple more incidents before it sank in, that the end was not only near, it was already done and gone.
* * *
So let's put it out there: Despite telling me he loved me, despite others telling me how important I was to him, despite my loving him the best I knew how, Cali was verbally and psychologically abusive to me. I don't know if he was necessarily this way to others--and, frustratingly, I may never know--but he was to me, off and on, for years. While I certainly didn't ask for it or do anything to prompt it or encourage it (or so I keep having to tell myself), it kept happening.
It wasn't consistent. It would come and go. He'd be wonderful and loving, then jokey, then would tease too hard, then would be just plain insulting when you protested too much. All within a short conversation, as if the lights were being switched on and off, and each time they came on, there was a new, more distorted Cali staring back at me.
Honestly, it's hard to remember the good times when all is said and done. He was a beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated man, so I wonder how much of that influenced me to love him and hang on when things didn't work out. He was clever but also goofy. He was exotic--German-Brazilian-Colombian--with curly reddish blond hair, blue eyes, and a square jaw. He had great taste in music but a tendency to favor nihilism in his popular culture (which I do not--life is hard, dark, and cruel enough all on its own--no emphasizing needed). We were attracted to each other physically--but not as much as you might think. We were attracted to each other intellectually . . . to a degree. In retrospect, I thought he could be intellectually intimidating, judgmental, and pretentious--and yet I was in awe of his intellect and the confidence of his very strong opinions. He may or may not have thought I was an idiot--yet an idiot who he wanted to help guide his career and support him emotionally during an ongoing health crisis. He could say beautiful things to you and seem to mean them. And then in the next breath, he would lie, badly but aggressively, daring me to challenge him.
I think it's fair to say that despite wanting to make things work (I'm assuming both of us did), ultimately we were a poor match. No, we were a horrible match. Like a historic building and a Molotov Cocktail. Highly combustible. Thrown in anger without perceiving the consequences or the destruction that would ensue.
We could never agree on how we would communicate. If I was circumspect, he thought I was being dishonest or uncaring. If I was vocal, he thought I said too much and said it to upset and to destabilize him. He would yell, he would be mean, he would get angry, he would express disgust at my behavior, communication, and intellect, which only made me less likely to communicate directly or honestly. At times like those, he said I reminded him of his mother--something you never want to hear from a romantic partner. Later I realized that he despised his mother, and I eventually understood why, seeing her as passive, indifferent, neglectful, dishonest, and obedient. Whether she exhibited any of those characteristics I could not say--I never met her. I understood where his feelings came from, but I didn't necessarily see myself in the same way, at least not for the same reasons.
And I still don't see myself as any of those things, but it's hard not to be passive when you're confronted with someone who is repeatedly and vociferously angry at you. And obedient. I think I'm more of a rule-follower, a color-inside-the-lines kind of guy. It's not something I always like about myself, but it has helped me get where I am in life, both in good and bad ways. And dishonest? A little but not because I want to deceive. It's more a case of pulling my punches. Life can be hard, I can work hard at it, and then someone comes along with absolutely nothing invested in my success, just some strongly voiced but likely casually held opinions about it. He or she critiques my performance at every turn, and I feel like, why did I even bother?
So I don't always say what I mean, I hold back. But I eventually get to the point in my own time and own way.
Nonetheless, if you're someone who feels they've had a lifetime of people not being open and honest, if you come from a family built on deception, you're not going to do well with my style of communication.
So why not just walk away?
* * *
The abuse kept happening and I kept letting it happen. Didn't I? That's the toughest thing to contemplate and endure, the thing I can't reconcile, being the victim and blaming the victim, me, at the same time.
I don't want to claim victim status, mind you. I like to think I have agency. As my mother would say, I can always figure it out, the problem at hand, and how to move beyond it. It just takes me time. Nonetheless, today I'm feeling like I find myself too often in abusive situations, whether at work or at home. I end up in these situations and have to figure out ways to stand up for myself or to work my way out of them or just take the low road and run away from them, rather than wishing and hoping people will know their boundaries and not inflict their anger on me. I fault myself for not having some super strength or clairvoyance that would keep the abusers at a distance and in check, never letting them get started in the first place, but also able to stop them cold with the perfect word or look.
Last week was like that. Currently the abusive relationship is work. I'm now a manager; I try to do right by my staff and my colleagues. And yet no matter how hard I try, I feel like I'm dealing with selfish, angry people who project their own sad stories onto me--to fix their lives and reward their life choices and yet who are rarely appreciative when I succeed in doing so, however small, however hard-won. Yes, I get paid a lot for this, but some weeks, it feels as though there's not enough money in the world, especially if it puts your mental and physical health at risk. My exhaustion, my unsettled mind, and my expanding waistline seem to confirm that money can only buy you so much happiness.
Which makes me wonder--not bitterly but not benignly either--is life just one long abusive relationship? My relationship with my mother is not like this, nor is my relationship with Cairo. Nor are my relationships with current friends and other family members. But there is work, there are bosses, there are other relationships, both familial and familiar--and these feel abusive to one degree or another, psychologically and physically.
* * *
You probably want details. I'd like to give them to you, but I likely won't. There are too many of them and many of them are still painful--painful because of their intent to cause pain and painful because I could never seem to successfully defend myself in a way that I felt was effective enough to stop the abuse. While I think some details might be compelling, others wouldn't. Ultimately, other than one hard punch to the arm, the abuse was chiefly psychological, taking the form of verbal insults, snide remarks, and hateful criticisms--about my (lack of) intelligence and sophistication and my (abundance of) awkwardness--triggers for me to be sure--and about how I felt the need to defend myself when he had been "just joking." That I was too sensitive, too nice, and, implied, too gullible. That I had misunderstood or that things hadn't happened as I thought (the punch in the arm serving as an example--again, he didn't remember or had been "just joking").
You know what? I am sensitive, probably more than many, although I make sure I don't describe it as "too" anything. I'm nice as well, more than many, certainly more than many in "nice" Canada. Gullible, I don't feel that way, but trusting, yeah, sometimes I am very trusting, at least when you're very good at encouraging me to trust you. When you're great at playing that role.
I've spent a lot of time trying to understand Cali's psychology. Was he a narcissist, faking his way through emotions that he didn't actually feel? Did he have borderline personality disorder, a condition for which I've yet to find a description that helps me understand. Was he, like Donald Trump, just an unrepentant asshole? Did he suffer lingering consequences from a serious car accident that may or may not have left him with lifelong brain injuries? Was he abused as a child and suffered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder?
There is evidence for the child abuse, at least psychological abuse, reported by him. There is also evidence of sexual abuse against other siblings, reported by his siblings. One even made a documentary about it. Californians. Go figure.
So hearing that, it makes what I went through with him pale in comparison--or so I've kept telling myself over the years. How could I even say I suffered compared to what Cali and his family went through? Why would I even think he would psychologically abuse me, knowing full well how that felt? Didn't he say so himself? And yet I did suffer consequences, and still do, which I suspect is what made me dream of Cali after a particularly psychologically abusive week.
Maybe it would help if I described it this way: The abuse was more akin to death by a thousand cuts, hidden in plain sight but painful all the same. There is probably no one standout event, which in some ways is worse--there was so much bad toward the end that it all blurs together.
Suffice it to say you had to be there--but be very grateful you weren't.
* * *
I've been reading some about the #MeToo movement lately, trying to parse out my feelings about the narratives, the testifiers, and the perpetrators. I struggle with my own male perspective, my gay male perspective, and my moral judgments. Rose McGowan does seem crazy and power-mad--did you catch that Ivan Drago pose at that women's conference?--but perhaps I would feel the same if I'd gone through some of the things she has. But haven't I? Maybe I should not so easily dismiss my experience when compared to an overly opinionated celebrity. Maybe I should become the next Dolph Lundgren to keep the bullies at bay.
In a recent New York Times interview, Uma Thurman described some horrible sexual and psychological situations with Harvey Weinstein, which have no other side to the story, no matter how many times Weinstein's attorneys describe what happened as an "awkward pass." She also described a horrible psychological situation with Quentin Tarantino, in which he encouraged her to do a stunt for a movie, promised to keep her safe, but which resulted in long-term physical damage. No other side there either.
Further, she also described an encounter at 16 with an older man that led her to go to his home alone, have drinks, and end up being coerced into sex with him.
And immediately I think, why would you do that? Go home with a stranger in New York City, being so young and putting yourself in such a vulnerable place. Why wouldn't you know better than to do that?
And yet . . . I think of all the times I've done similarly. Given the news from Toronto these days about a potential serial killer, a mild-mannered gay man in a mild-mannered country who may have tortured and killed five or more men, I feel lucky that I'm still alive, especially since I was taking chances and making questionable decisions about my sexuality and safety well into my 40s. If I gave myself a pass at 26, 36, and 46, why shouldn't I give a 16-year-old girl a pass as well?
Over the holidays, the #MeToo discussion came up at home. My feminist sister and I had some back-and-forth on the issue. She made the comment that a woman should be able to walk down the street at midnight completely naked and not be harassed or assaulted. And I remember thinking (but not saying), who among us, male or female or otherwise, has that "right"? If I did the same, I'd no doubt face harassment, assault, and likely jail-time.
And yet . . . why shouldn't one be able to do this? Maybe a certain level of harassment is unavoidable, but, as I've often said about my fellow gay men, you shouldn't end up assaulted or dead because someone doesn't like how you look or act. People have the right not to like you and, I guess, to say so, if they so choose. But there is no right to rape and murder you, no matter how risky or provocative your behavior is--like, say, while walking down the street, naked or otherwise, or hooking up with a stranger you met online.
* * *
So with all this rolling and trolling around in my head, what do I think about #MeToo and me too? I still think that you have to be careful and look out for yourself. There are people in life who you can trust; finding them and holding onto them can be challenging, but they exist, thank goodness. But there are many people you can't, strangers as well as familiars. Some people will tell you they admire you, they respect you, they love you, and then in the next instance treat you cruelly, even criminally. And then in the instant after that, blame you for causing the abuse, call you stupid for letting it happen, openly question your sanity, detest you for doing so, and silence your complaints by letting you know they've suffered much more than you could ever imagine. And then the cycle will start all over again--because this is what they do and because you can't seem to do anything to stop it.
But how do you "rise above" and protect yourself from this, especially when you've had a life founded on compliance, compromise, acquiescence, and agreeableness? Many of us are like this, regardless of gender or sexuality. Meanwhile, there are legions of serial harassers, abusers, assaulters, rapists, and murderers. They hide in plain sight, looking respectable, having jobs, manners, portfolios, homes, and families. They stroke your ego with one hand while slapping or punching you with the other.
How do you stop this? And how do you stop blaming yourself when it happens? I think you have the responsibility to take care of yourself, but it's hard and exhausting to stay on alert all the time, especially when signs sometimes mislead you to the wrong, reactionary conclusions. But why must we, the victims, accept the blame and carry the responsibility? Don't we all have a responsibility to take care of each other, or at least to not do harm to each other? Shouldn't the perpetrators own their cruelty instead of fobbing it off and saying you let it happen by not fighting back--as if they would even honor your fight? Sometimes it's hard to know what will do harm because there can be unintended consequences to your actions and your words. They can hurt in ways you can't fathom. But there are times when it's blatantly obvious that you are doing harm to others and continue to do so, no matter how much you play the innocent or blame the victim. You might apologize, but you don't really mean it, and then you repeat your actions and maybe even enjoy the confusion and pain it causes the object of your derision. Isn't it your responsibility to stop yourself, to not take advantage of a situation that gives you pleasure and satisfaction for all the wrong reasons?
I keep thinking of the execrable Brock Turner, the guy who was found dragging a woman behind a dumpster and raping her, who only got six months in jail. Perhaps that's the most extreme example, but how do you justify to yourself that this is acceptable behavior? "Well, she shouldn't have gotten drunk, she shouldn't have let it happen to herself." How we've all come to take that as gospel in our lives, myself included. I knew abuse was wrong when I was in my early 20s, and now I'm struggling to unlearn what I've become accustomed to--years of harassment, abuse, and even assault. It's not your fault that someone abuses you. It's not my fault either.
* * *
Cali died in late November 2013. Whether by his own hand on purpose or by accident or whether due to a recurrence of an aneurysm that had plagued him in 2011 and prompted him to get back in touch with me in 2012, I cannot say. As I mentioned earlier, when things blew apart once again in January-February 2013, he resurfaced a couple of months later. We spoke, we visited each other at a conference, we spent the night together, and we discussed our future. I still hoped we had one, and I tried to convey that I hadn't given up on us and that I hoped I'd be able to relocate out West, where he was now living and gainfully employed.
But a week after that visit, we were back to our old abusive tete-a-tete. And after that, I spoke with him rarely and, in fact, ignored a couple of his phone messages in the last months of his life. I moved on and was happier for doing so.
I was never able to find an obituary that might have provided more detail about what happened. I didn't attend the memorial for him held in early 2014. I just couldn't bring myself to do so. I wanted to attend and perhaps should have but money was tight at the time. The service was just after the New Year in suburban Los Angeles, meaning a cross-country trek involving planes, rental cars, hotels, and meals. And by that point, I just figured Cali had cost me enough money over the years--a few hundred dollars for a rental in Puerto Vallarta, which he baled on and never repaid me for; paying his way to visit me in Pittsburgh; being invited to visit him in California a year before and having to get a hotel room for the vacation because, he suddenly decided, he didn't want me to see his apartment in mid-move condition, a condition somehow he found a way to blame me for. (Short version: I helped him find a great job with a major Western U.S. university in a large, burgeoning, and hip [in a late capitalist way] city. But it wasn't a job near me [and lord knows I tried to do so], which just showed I wasn't serious about him and was in effect kicking him to the relationship curb.)
But it was more than the money. By this time, I'd started dating Cairo and had begun to understand how damaged I was by Cali. I didn't want to look back by going to the memorial service. I also felt like I no longer needed to.
I later learned that at the memorial service one of his brothers had spoken about Cali's moments of rage and abusive behavior to others. I didn't learn about that until a couple of years afterwards. Hearing that might have helped me heal, but even knowing it now has not done so in a deep or meaningful way. I still crave evidence and testimonies of Cali's cruelty to others, so maybe once and for all I'll know it wasn't just me, it wasn't my fault.
Instead mainly what I've heard is praise and love and worship and tears from one of Cali's friends, The Widow, a mutual acquaintance who had never had much use for me, nor I him. Yet now we are bound together in memory of Cali. Every March around the time of Cali's birthday and every November around the time of Cali's death, The Widow turns Facebook into a wailing wall of lamentations over Cali's passing and testimonials to how brilliant, beautiful, wonderful, thoughtful, bold, hilarious, etc., he was. I recently learned that The Widow even had a photo of Cali turned into a painting.
I will never love anyone that much. And that's fine by me.
Far be it from me to judge how people grieve--I still occasionally cry about my father's passing and that happened nearly 11 years ago. Yet have a portrait created of your deceased and (let's face it) unrequited love all seems a bit creepy and cloying to me.
It also seems undeserved and unfair. The Widow seems to have had a very strong friendship with Cali, a respectful relationship, while I never did, at least not consistently, not satisfactorily. The Widow has joyful memories and hilarious stories. The Widow is inspired by his friendship with Cali. And while I have some of these things because of Cali, they are all tainted to some degree with memories of cruelty and insults.
All I ever wanted was friendship, respect, and love. And all I ever felt was that I wasn't good enough to get any of these things from him, except in the smallest of pieces, enough to keep me hanging on and just enough to hang myself.
* * *
Things are better now. Nearly five years later on, I have a solid relationship with Cairo. I have gainful (if unsatisfying) employment. I am completely out of debt. I live in another country, something I've always wanted to do, even if I think it is a cold, colorless land. I am even thinking about adding a third country to my repertoire before all is said and done. I am effectively medicated with an anti-depressant that doesn't control me, numb me, or ruin me; instead, it just gives me a little mental space to cope better with the world. I have a really nice apartment, and I'm thinking about taking a lovely and exotic vacation this year. Life is generally good.
Despite conventional romantic wisdom, I would not trade any of it for another chance to talk with Cali. It might be satisfying to tell him how I felt and still feel, but I don't think it would make a damn bit of difference. He still wouldn't listen, and I still wouldn't be able to tell him.
Besides, it's not like I haven't had the chance to talk with him before, since he died. I've heard from Cali in my dreams, once memorably flying through the sky with him, side by side, his telling me he is doing fine. And I've seen him before in odd, unexpected places, such as Portland in 2015, right before accepting the job that brought me to Toronto, where I spotted a man glaring at me through an open restaurant window, a man that looked just like Cali if he'd let his hair go gray. Trust me, it would be like Cali to fake his own death. I haven't ruled that out.
But none of these dreams and sightings fixes anything.
I alternate between feeling sorry for Cali--he didn't have an easy life; he didn't deserve the abuse he received--and with being angry at him, being glad that he's no longer in my life. I gloat a little to think that I accomplished what he could not--a steady, successful career; a move to life in another country. An immigrant to the U.S., Cali couldn't stand America, although coming from money, he benefited from American life more than many. I still feel bad for him that he couldn't accomplish those things, and yet I'm not sure I've been completely successful either: I don't really like Canada!
I wonder if it will always be like this. Who would I talk with that would resolve the unresolvable? Would there ever be enough corroborating evidence that would make me feel any better? Ultimately, I bear the responsibility to heal myself. However, I in no way bear the responsibility for the bad behavior of others. Especially Cali's.
May he rest. And so may I.
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