SGL Café ...

Manwiches, Manhood, and Letting Go.

I have a problem letting things go. I plot, I simmer; I rarely get over things quickly. Maybe it's my addictive personality. I get hooked on stuff too easily. I’ll do something once, my eyes roll in my head and a new obsession is born. Oddly enough, relationships (with one notable exception) I can let go with relative ease and move on ... but destructive things and destructive people, for some reason, I have a problem with them. Maybe it’s the danger. Or maybe I'm just a fool. I smoked for twenty years. As bad as that habit is, its sadly just one manifestation of a broader self-destructive nature. I quit about a year and a half ago. Recently I fell off the wagon (secretly hiding my cigarettes around the house) and have been having a devil of a time kicking again. I finally told my Boi and its better now … I’m back on the wagon. Confessions soothe a spirit in turmoil ... makes dealing with issues easier, once secrecy is purged. It’s one of the building blocks of group-therapy, I think. You gotta puke it out for all to see ... and then examine it. But who needs therapy ... when you've got a blog? There's this young man in my neighborhood: I'll call him N. We've seen each other in passing for years. He's about half my age with a striking face ... and recently as I passed him on the street our nods of recognition evolved into verbal greetings. In no time at all, he was coming to the my crib on the regular. Now ... I live in a very diverse moderately upscale neighborhood, with sprinklings of stone-cold ghetto here and there--remnants of a time before yuppies began buying up all the brownstones in the previously Latino neighborhood and making downtown Jersey City the IT community it's become. N is Latino and a true little ghetto kat who associates with the sort who either already know what the inside of a jail cell looks like ... or soon will. He's clearly not the sort I wanted to let into my life ... and if it wasn't for that face, that body, and my ravenous libido, I wouldn't have. The first time he came over I made no secret of who I was. He complimented the crib and said that I must get "all the girls" because of it. I quickly set him straight and said girls were not my speed. He said he didn't have a problem with that. Cool, I thought ... extremely.

So ... soon N was making weed runs for me ... 'cause, naturally, he had all the connections. Though I had not tried anything, I was growing more and more fond of him by the second (just the site of him made me warm) ... and I knew one day, one day soon, it was bound to happen. But then he didn't return from a weed run one day. I called his cell ... no answer. Hours passed, still no N. It slowly dawned that he wasn't coming back. I felt played. Played by a little shit half my age. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to find him and hurt him bad. Two weeks passed and I didn't see him when I frequently passed his apartment building---the one on the Avenue where him and others chilled out front on hot days, playing cards, drinking, accumulating ghetto points. I assumed he was ducking me, and this burned me up even more. Then I chastised myself, and said I should've known better. I'd side-stepped decades of experience and deluded myself into believing that our 'socializing' would be drama free. Although I did have a plan of action, or I should say, retribution, for when I finally caught him ... I took deep mental breaths and decided to take the high road and just let it go. The small amount of cash would be the price I paid for this lesson that I needed to learn. Then my cell rang. 'N10' flashed on the display. I knew another N, so I'd put 10 after this one 'cause, well, the day he gave me those digits ... he was all that. I quickly answered and he apologized profusely and told me that he'd gotten arrested that day after coppin' the weed. I wanted to believe him, because that very possibility had played in my thoughts while I rationalized reasons why, just maybe, he hadn't played me like a sucker. So I convinced myself he was telling the truth and then felt guilty for sending him on the errand in the first place. He came over minutes later with some other weed he'd copped, to make it up to me he said ... and just before he left, he unexpectedly threw his arms wide and "C'mere ... gimme some luv." I did. And it was not one of those manly half-hug/half-handshake things ... but a real chest to chest, neck nuzzling, clenching, hug. It lingered so much longer than necessary that I joked, 'If this keeps goin', we're gonna need a condom.' He just laughed, squeezed me again, and left ... but the feeling of his body pressed against mine never did. Weeks later, on a much larger run, he did it to me again.

This time there was no doubt, no rationalizing his actions. In days I saw him in front of his building from about half a block away ... he saw me approaching, and rolled inside like I was a black sedan about to do a drive-by. I rang his bell. No answer. I rang his cell ... but of course, it went straight to voice-mail. I wanted to leave a message. The sound of his husky voice ... "Yo, this is N... leave a message, or whatever" ... on his out-going message soothed my anger so unbelievably fast if scared me ... fearful that I'd make a bigger ass of myself (if that's possible), I hung up and went home. Since then, I've had emotions vacillating between anger and plots for retribution ... and annoyingly, those same lustful visions I'd had since I set eyes on him, oddly enhanced by all my rage. Yeah, lust, its still there. Inexplicably, in spite of everything, I still wanna have him naked and sweaty in my bed ... preferably pressed between me and my Boi in a delightful ... memorable ... manwich. We're cool like that, me and my Boi, down for the occasional night of decadence with just the right 'dime'. Here's a side note that's taken decades of introspection to admit: Treat me like a king and I may break your heart ... but treat me as an after-thought, and some part of me may worship the ground you walk on. The novel level of openness and honesty that my Boi and I share regarding issues of sexuality, and mutually shunning the hetero-paradigm of monogamy is the odd glue that's kept us together for a year now. But the N saga has opened my eyes to the downside of manwich making ... or rather, using a local ... for its meaty filling. One night my Boi passed N in front of his building. N was talking on his cell, and after my Boi passed, N said “faggot…” something or other in the stream of his phone conversation. When he relayed it to me, he wasn't sure if N was directing it at him or not, because hoody types threw around the phrases like 'faggot muthafuka' so much amongst themselves ... it was hard to tell if there was any malicious intent. I doubt there was ... though it was enough for me anyway. My anger flared, and any dribbles of lust evaporated. I took it as a sign ... a portent of unpleasant events if N should ever start some shit my Boi. I'd be the one in jail because I'd certainly go to his house, wait for him to come out, and with all that anger, disappointment and unrequited lust fueling my rage ... I'd completely black-out on his ass. When I awoke ... ... N would most assuredly be horizontal and bleeding on the pavement. More deep mental breaths calmed me though ... yeah, and images of myself being carted off by the police, head down, neighbors whispering. A scandal would develop, one that N would no doubt embellish (when he regained consciousness) with lurid and fictitious details which would forever paint me as the middle-aged perv trying to get with him ... and who got violent when rebuffed. When a story begins with --"He copped this bangin' Purple Haze for me, then ..."-- it's gonna be quite difficult to end it smelling like a rose. There would be no spinning an incident of that magnitude into a good light, no matter what I said, people would still shake their heads.

Yeah. I did wanna hit it, and had for a long time. And working toward that end wasn't necessarily stupid ... but allowing pride to escalate the little drama into a potentially dangerous scandal would be. Yesterday I passed him for the first time in a while, but I was on phone this time. He was sitting on his steps and looked up. Our eyes locked like they used to, and he did a nervous 'wassup?' gesture with his head ... but his body language and expression suddenly went rigid, like he'd been goofing off big-time and I was his boss who'd warned him twice. I was almost amused ... but more importantly, I felt most of my lost manhood finds its way home again … if only from our mutual primal awareness that I could pound him into the pavement if I chose. I just shook my head a little and continued on my way, never breaking stride with my conversation … and relishing the memory of that wary fear his eyes. Now I avoid him, if I can, because I am letting it go. I don't wanna take a chance on being sucked into the mess I foresee ... if he should ill-step to my Boi in the slightest way, or even sneer at me on the wrong damn day. Just minutes before I started writing this blog entry, 'N10' flashed on my cell-phone display. As I watched it blink, buzz and vibrate next to my coffee cup … I felt my temperature--maddeningly--begin to rise, and a storm of stupidity begin its destructive swirl. I knew my soul needed to purge. As of this sentence ... he hasn't called back.