Walking Away
Dec. 5th, 2012 07:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraMy Uncle Rik was something of a guru to me in those early days.
"In any situation, you always have three choices," he told me once. "You can say, Yes. You can say, No. Or you can walk away."
That last option diminishes for most people as they get older. The more you own, the more enmeshed your roots become with the roots of all the other little polyps, the harder it is to stay motile.
But at 18, Justin was primed to float.
I am thinking he just found it very, very difficult to be the pet Negro at an all white school. I am thinking he didn't study, and now finals were coming up and he was going to flunk out, forfeit the $25,000 or so the school had thrown at him when they invited him to be a pet Negro. I am thinking there was some precipitating incident, maybe a fight with the Girlfriend – for several years he'd been hot and heavy with a Russian girl, an Endless Love scenario (the great Scott Spencer novel, not the bad Brooke Shields movie.)
I am thinking these things, but of course it's only speculation on my part. Maybe Cthulu materialized at the door of his dorm in a big pink Cadillac and said, "Buddy, we're going for a ride." Maybe he dropped a $20 bill in a storm grating and a clown's arm rose up from the sewer and grabbed him.
Who the fuck knows?
The great tragedy is that no one ever said to him, "Son, you can walk away."
###
Robin is distraught and angry. He thinks he's angry at the collective outpouring of sugar-coated grief erupting on Facebook. Someone cobbled together a video slideshow of Justin photos (I recognized several of mine) to some mawkish female singer that instantly got 300 "Likes." Robin's disdain was palpable and scathing.
(I hope and pray the singer wasn't April Lavigne, but since Justin was a skater boy, she likely was.)
Really, Robin's angry at Justin. But it will take him some time to figure that one out. If he ever does.
In the meantime, I was very sad and distracted all day yesterday. And when I woke up this morning, my fingers were swollen to the size of sausages and my legs were broken out in fresh lesions. That's my bête noir autoimmune disease kicking in. I was so stressed out those three years in Ithaca that I succeeded in completely breaking down my immune system.
And now once more, of course, I am forced to acknowledge what a shitty decision staying in Ithaca those three years really was. I thought I was buying Robin at least the tale end of a golden childhood.
But apparently not.
I should have walked away.
Recently, I've started having that thing that always happens to me when I leave places, that visual wash of memories. The hikes I took with my sweet Milo in the woods behind the Cement Bungalow. The beaver-finding expeditions I made with Ben. The Commons one night after a Free Tibet demonstration, aglow in the extraordinary sulfurous light of the antique streetlamps. And always, always that sight of Robin and Justin in DeWitt Park one sunny day, Justin's elbow just resting on Robin's shoulder; Robin giddily alight with some fresh mischief, his eyes dancing.
"In any situation, you always have three choices," he told me once. "You can say, Yes. You can say, No. Or you can walk away."
That last option diminishes for most people as they get older. The more you own, the more enmeshed your roots become with the roots of all the other little polyps, the harder it is to stay motile.
But at 18, Justin was primed to float.
I am thinking he just found it very, very difficult to be the pet Negro at an all white school. I am thinking he didn't study, and now finals were coming up and he was going to flunk out, forfeit the $25,000 or so the school had thrown at him when they invited him to be a pet Negro. I am thinking there was some precipitating incident, maybe a fight with the Girlfriend – for several years he'd been hot and heavy with a Russian girl, an Endless Love scenario (the great Scott Spencer novel, not the bad Brooke Shields movie.)
I am thinking these things, but of course it's only speculation on my part. Maybe Cthulu materialized at the door of his dorm in a big pink Cadillac and said, "Buddy, we're going for a ride." Maybe he dropped a $20 bill in a storm grating and a clown's arm rose up from the sewer and grabbed him.
Who the fuck knows?
The great tragedy is that no one ever said to him, "Son, you can walk away."
Robin is distraught and angry. He thinks he's angry at the collective outpouring of sugar-coated grief erupting on Facebook. Someone cobbled together a video slideshow of Justin photos (I recognized several of mine) to some mawkish female singer that instantly got 300 "Likes." Robin's disdain was palpable and scathing.
(I hope and pray the singer wasn't April Lavigne, but since Justin was a skater boy, she likely was.)
Really, Robin's angry at Justin. But it will take him some time to figure that one out. If he ever does.
In the meantime, I was very sad and distracted all day yesterday. And when I woke up this morning, my fingers were swollen to the size of sausages and my legs were broken out in fresh lesions. That's my bête noir autoimmune disease kicking in. I was so stressed out those three years in Ithaca that I succeeded in completely breaking down my immune system.
And now once more, of course, I am forced to acknowledge what a shitty decision staying in Ithaca those three years really was. I thought I was buying Robin at least the tale end of a golden childhood.
But apparently not.
I should have walked away.
Recently, I've started having that thing that always happens to me when I leave places, that visual wash of memories. The hikes I took with my sweet Milo in the woods behind the Cement Bungalow. The beaver-finding expeditions I made with Ben. The Commons one night after a Free Tibet demonstration, aglow in the extraordinary sulfurous light of the antique streetlamps. And always, always that sight of Robin and Justin in DeWitt Park one sunny day, Justin's elbow just resting on Robin's shoulder; Robin giddily alight with some fresh mischief, his eyes dancing.
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-05 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 07:01 am (UTC)Hindsight is 20/20 so I don't think you should beat yourself up over staying. There was obviously something worth staying for, for you're obviously insightful and self-critical enough to have bolted if you really thought you should.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:57 pm (UTC)Just notes for future reference, in other words. :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-09 04:43 pm (UTC)my heart goes out to you both.
such a brutal situation to deal with at such a young age. can't even imagine. :(