At the intersection of Synchronicity & Sadness...

  No, the title isn't some quaintly-named street corner here in NOLA but rather the temporal/emotional space I was in when I encountered a Trinity of Tragedies (a Triptych of the Triflin? a Troupe of the Tired?) and an Eerie Epilogue. Please keep in mind I am in the midst of a third knitting project, worked in the Trinity Stitch at this time.

This definitely qualifies as part of the ongoing saga I think of as “Crazy Hoes I used to Know”

Picture it:
Holy Week, 2013.

On Wednesday I get an email from crazy ass Mo Gumbo (*of whom more here), with whom I had a brief series of emails (she sent from a cell number I didn't recognize) in January, when I disclosed that I had been workin at that ungodly Colledge. Once I realized it was her I stopped answering. In this warped version of Holy Week, she can be thought of as the Unholy Ghost in the Machine.

Had first interview with historic New Orleans collection.  They just requested my salary requirements.  NOW, how do I find you Sam?  Can I just buy you dinner or something?
Maybe ill try you at Colledge.
MY CELL is XXX-XXX-XXXX

Fuck.  Now I have to find a house.

My first thought was, I remember this Ho getting an advance to write a book, why does she find it so difficult to use subject pronouns? Then I thought, maybe that’s why that book never got published. Does she seriously think I’m about to call her? At any rate, in my tradition of crossing the street when I see crazy coming, I didn’t respond to this email & went about my day.

On Holy Thursday, I was on the 10:30AM bus, knitting, heading to work at the Med Skool, and I see this guy I’ll call Scooter getting on the bus. We were boyfriends for a few days during the last few months of my Wilderness Years. This would have been in late 2001, after my quasi-literate dentally challenged transsexual roommate had moved out (AKA gotten arrested) and I was working a nightclub on Bourbon St. Scooter was a stripper at a nameless skeevy white trash gay bar a few blox away & around the corner. He was new to the scene & even though I knew I was on my way out, we had some fun while we could, but honestly our relationship was as plastic as the star shaped ring filled with glittery liquid & reflective hearts that I gave him.

I’m not sure when the last time was we saw each other, but it was definitely some time before my last hurrah during Mardi Gras 2002, and yet there he was, struggling to figure out where to put the money in the fare box. He looked pretty much the same, still slender and fair skinned and dressed to kill. Real Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses (I can spot a fake a mile away) a Gucci Belt, Versace Jeans. As he walked towards me, I looked up from my knitting & said “Scooter?”

To which he replied: “Oh my GAWD! Sam!! I remember you! We had sex!”

My eyes just got really big & all I could say was: “Yes, We did.”

“Did I just say that real loud on this bus?”

“Yes, you did, now sit down & let’s talk, since I can’t look at anybody else on this bus.”

So he sat down & we caught up a bit. He’s just move back from someplace else, looking for an apartment since whoever he is living with now is putting him out for not sleeping with him or some foolishness like this.

As he keeps talking, I realize he’s speaking in that super fast yet getting quieter way that ppl have a tendency to do when their minds are on fry from doing that nasty crystal meth. Of course, the fact that he started this whole conversation with the sentence “We had sex!!” prolly should have been my first clue that the child was on drugs, but there you have it.

He says something about wishing his mom would just give him the money for his apartment deposit without wanting to control him; he is 30 years old, after all.

(Yes, hoes, this means he was 18 when we were fooling around)

“Grrl that is the whole point. You are 30 years old, you shouldn’t need your mom to pay for anything, and if you do, you really ought to expect her to want some control since evidently whatever you are doing isn’t getting it”

He kinda got that faraway look that people get when they are all hazed out but hear the truth & can’t dispute it. Then he changed the subject, asking if we were at our bus stop yet. Since we were both going to the end of the line, we kept talking. He seemed really impressed that I’ve stayed off the scene and out of trouble for over a decade. He honestly asked “How did you do it?” and it really wasn’t something I could answer in the 5 minutes I had before I had to be walking into work. I really wanted to just call off & spend the day talking to this beautiful creature, to see where it all went wrong & maybe even share some hope with him. So we exchanged numbers. As he stepped away he said something that kinda shook me up. He said something about me getting some syringes from the med skool.

So I had this image of this gorgeous little thing hurting himself like this all day. It just made me so feckin sad. It isn’t what I wanted for him. I know I couldn’t have saved him but damn. He comes from a good family.

I texted him when I got out of work & he said he wanted to come over, so I told him which bus to take & everything he needed to know & he said he’d be leaving around 7:30.

7:30 came & went, no Scooter. Around 8 I texted “Are you still coming over?” & then around midnight I just sent “???” as I was wrapping up the dinner I’d cooked for us. I’d been too upset about getting stood up to eat anyway. No fool like an old fool.

At 1AM this man calls me & says, “Hey! Is it too late to hang out? You need to get a car”

“Grrl what happened to you?”

“Oh well, I got kinda trapped in the bathhouse & I couldn’t leave. I still wanna hang out with you though. When are you free tomorrow?”

“Grrl it’s OK. I’m OK. If the best thing you can come up with on a Thursday Night is being slung up in the bathhouse, I don’t think we really need to be hangin out.”

Silence for a sec & “Ok, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

We hung up & I was eventually able to get some (troubled) sleep. I meditated, prayed, whatever you wanna call it & on Good Friday, I sent him this text:

“Look. I can’t see you. You lied to me last night & that’s it. I don’t deal with liars or ppl who choose addict behavior over spending time with me. I’m not mad, but I have pretty basic rules. Living up to your word is a Big 1. I wish you the best & hope you can find a way to make better choices.”

I felt free after I sent this. I did some more praying & meditating & chanting & finally came up with something to tell Mo Gumbo. I felt like I needed closure & didn’t want to hear anything else from her, so I sent this:

I am not sure what it is you want from me, and frankly, I don't care any more. You and I are not friends. We are not going to be friends. It is not that you "hung up on me when you were having a bad time" it's that you called in the middle of the night, asked me to call up your latest baby daddy to tell him you were going to have an abortion & then when I wouldn't do it & tried to talk sense to you, you hung up on me. I am not angry about this any more. If anything, I'm thankful, it made my decision to end our friendship that much easier.

 You know why I didn't immediately start blowing up your phone, calling back? Because you didn't want what I had to offer. I couldn't see then (and can't see now) any good reason to continuously interact with you as you go from one self-induced crisis to the next.

 The fact that your next communication with me was an attempt on your part to take back some knitting needles (with no apology nor even mention of your frankly atrocious behavior)  was the nail in the proverbial coffin. That series of increasingly desperate phone calls were the clods of dirt covering the coffin & frankly this email is the headstone.

 Please understand that I am not angry with you. Just tired of all the lies and the drama and the nonsense. One of your messages said something like "I've seen you forgive ppl for lots of worse things" ---I do forgive you for being so out of control, Mo Gumbo. I honestly do. Forgiveness does not mean that I need or even want you back in my life.

 This is not just a goodbye to you, Mo Gumbo, but also to taking on problems that are not mine in some vain attempt to make myself out to be a hero. Goodbye to perpetuating a pattern of behavior that may have worked at one time but is now just exhausting.

 I pray you find peace.

All this spiritual cleansing makes a gal hungry, and my grrl Daniella & I had plans to visit our fave restaurant, El Gato Negro, with our re-usable signature cups! She came over to my place first and we talked for awhile & I gave her the full 411 about Mo Gumbo & Scooter & erry thang.

When we parked Daniella’s car & were heading to meet Nanette, I looked over at Daniella & said “Bitch I feel like I am on red alert for some other ghost from my past to come around some corner & accost me.”

We had a laugh & then a great lunch (as usual) and as Daniella and I were walking back to the car, about a block from where we'd parked, I saw this homeless man in a doorway, sitting next to a pair of crutches, telling some other guy that he didn’t wanna live past 40, and he was already 40.

As I was walking by, I glanced at him and my blood absolutely ran cold. It was Pablo. A straight guy from the Wilderness Years. He was at my 25^th birthday party. He came to my house. A real Latin Lover looking type, usually in a black leather motorcycle jacket with Morrissey hair, high cheekbones, a chiseled jaw, and naturally tan skin and dark eyes with a slightly crooked front tooth that flawed his perfection in such a way that it made him all the more beautiful.

All that beauty was gone, those cheeks & that jaw obscured by a layer of fat and that swarthy skin tone just grey, all grey and ashy. Hair all chopped off like a prisoner. That adorable crooked tooth now practically perpendicular to his gums and stained from smoking a billion cigarettes and Lawd knows what else over the last 13 or so years since we’d seen each other.

My 1^st instinct was to give him a hug & when I bent down to do it, I caught a whiff of 3-days-no-showering & misery. Unmistakable. Made sadder by him reaching for the cigarette butt I’d just thrown down and even moreso when he started grabbing at my re-usable (recently refilled) cup from El Gato Negro. I stood up and he was talking crazy to me, telling me that he’d recently tried to kill himself, he showed me fresh scars on his forearms and pulled up his shirt and there were bullet scars and other scars and then he pulled up his left pant leg & showed me his calf. Where there should be muscle and skin there is a huge scar like a big piece of his calf muscle has been ripped off & cauterized. I seriously could have burst into tears right then and there.

He asked for a sip, he asked for a smoke. I took the full pack of ciggies I’d opened on the way to the restaurant & tried to hand it to him. He wanted me to stay and talk and I couldn’t. He tried to enlist Daniella: “He’s leaving me! Make him stay!” and I just said, “Baby I can’t stay. I’m on my way someplace and honestly this is too much. Please take these cigarettes & let me get outta here.”

Daniella & I walked to the car in silence. As she was bringing me to Hahnville to visit my Grandmother for Easter weekend, the Trinity bit hit me. The Younger, Still Beautiful Young Man, The Once Beautiful Older Man, and the Unholy, Never Beautiful, Ghost in the Machine.

By the time I got to Geese’s house, I got not 1 but 3 (3 again?) emails from Mo Gumbo:

I get it.
You were wrong on multiple levels and right on others.
But given the overall purpose of your words, I am not sure that truth is an endeavor.

I've paid the prices and suffered enough pain to have HAD to change.

You were wrong about the needles.
Yes, I did want a few back.  And I did apologize for asking as i explained I had no idea my daughter would begin to knit.  Anyone with a heart would understand my conflict.  I asked for a few, or the bag.  Not both.  I wanted to giver her a piece of my grandmother, not the while kit and caboodle.

Based on this email, I see you may not care about that piece of the "truth."

You might have guessed that I got off the phone and sat upon examining your words, harsh as they can be.  I have more than once expressed my appreciation for the same.

Since then, much has changed.
I have no drama to share.  Have only done good.  Dug deep and found my worth.

I will send you some cash and an address.  If you choose to send some I'd my grandmother to my daughter, my soul will smile, exhale, and thank you again.

I will send it to you at Delgado.

I hope you are getting the rest that you need, from many things.  

Then this:

Oh.  My salary requirements could eliminate me from consideration.  Finally have a chance at the perfect job.  The one I would try to retire from.
But I may not get it.  I'm sure you are not the only to hope that I don't.

But I'm in a position to be good either way. And I think that may be part of the point.

If u are as repelled as you claim, you should not have a problem forwarding those things to my daughter.  It would be the good and right thing to do.

And finally this, with “My Husband Can Pick Them Up” as the subject:

Since you are more interested in having a whipping post and using me as a spring oars to work out your issues than simply being a better person than me and doing the right thing, Phil can come get the needles for my daughter.  Or since my dad taught there I can have someone from English department get them from you.  No need to say why.

I had no idea how much hate/contempt you carry.  But my grandmother and daughter have nothing to do with it.  I gave you those out of friendship.  If you are not interested in that friendship, in offering you cash to get them back.

If you didn't need the cash, just be willing to drop them by English department.

I'm sorry for the discomfort I caused you.  I've been a horrible friend.
But I don't deserve your shit, and from the words you wrote, you don't want mine.  So please be willing to drop off the needles/bag.  Dont do it for me.  Do it for my grandmother and daughter who never did shit to you.

I love you and that is that.

Ill pay a bill by phone if that will help.  Send you an amazon gift card, whatever.

Now, instead of being a friend and responding, how about just make it a business transaction?  How bout just tell me what a bitch like me has to do to get those back from the person who wrote all that venom?

So, please.  If you are willing to drop off with someone for any fee at all, please let me know.  If not, because of what they are....I will come see you myself if I have to.

Not one person you respect could possibly think it right of you to keep those, regardless of your depiction of who I AM.

DO RIGHT, even if you think I am incapable. 

Oh lawd bitch, Really?

I shared all of this with my lifelong BFF, Sandi & she was as appalled about this crazy ho’s off-the-hook emails as I’m sure you are.

So I took some time & dug down deep to try to make this Psycho Hose Beast understand. On Easter Sunday, I sent her this:

I'm not interested in having a whipping post or anything else. I'm neither angry nor contemptuous. I'm not doing anything to you or your child. I do not have anything of yours; the bag & the needles went to Salvation Army about a month after I gave you an address & never received anything.
Please stop contacting me. I believe I have been abundantly clear that I have forgiven you for all mistakes on your part and misunderstandings on mine.
I do not wish you harm or suffering, I just wish you would stop all of this madness.

She sent back “Wow. Have a great week.”

This makes me think she may begin to grasp what I was telling her here.

I was knitting a project in the Trinity stitch & I remember thinking, ok, that’s 3, but if you remember, you need 4 stitches to make the stitch (because you are making 3 from one & then one from 3) so I started to wonder what the 4th kick in the balls would be.

I had to wait about a week, before I got a call from an old school friend who told me that one of my students from last semester (the one whose eyes never tracked right & was always talking crazy & clearly on drugs) had been found dead at home. She was only 31.

Don’t get me wrong, I could see this person was on a bad path, but I really didn’t think it would end this soon. I don’t feel guilty, or that anything that I could have done would have stopped this tragedy but DAMN. So fuckin sad. Nobody has said what the specific cause of death was, but it clearly wasn’t murder & otherwise healthy 31 year olds don’t just drop dead from natural causes, so I’m guessing it was drugs.

I am just trying to figure out what does it all mean? Why am I coming across these people at this time, in this way? I am leaning towards “There but for the Grace of God/The Universe/Krsna/WhateverYouNeedToCallIt Go I”