It was a month later, I’d been dating the guy for about six months, intently.  A few weeks prior things had begun to fray. I called my sister the morning after.

“He’s a cokehead.”

“What?” she said.

“A cokehead. He’s a cokehead.”

“Says who? Are you sure?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean not really. Where did you hear that?”

“He told me.  Um… Heroin too. He shoots up.”

(swearing below the break)

“Oh fuck me.  What the fuck? Okay, tell me what happened.”

“Uh… well you know I went over to that house and banged on the fucking door to see what was going on.”

“Yeah?”

“Well I didn’t find anything out but I sure pissed him off.  And I scared, you-know-who. The Libra.  She got an eyeful.  She gasped, even.  He didn’t pick up the phone for a couple days so I just went over to his place. You know. To have it out.”

“And..?”

“And he was home. And he let me in, all right. He buzzed me right up but when I got up there he scared the shit out of me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.  He was acting weird.  Real weird. I started crying and I left. Uh… he really scared me. He was chanting shit.  Remember, major mistake? Stuff like that. He was chanting stuff like that and I could not get him to stop.”

“To stop acting?”

“No. To stop. To stop and be a human being.”

“This doesn’t sound good, Elsa.”

“No shit.  Finally I left and went home.”

“Was out he out on his balcony when you left?”

“Yeah.  He was sitting on the ledge, staring at me and and smoking.  That fucker. You ought to see how he looks up there.  It’s something else.  Anyway my heart was pounding and shit. I didn’t know what the hell.”

“So then what?”

“I went home.”

“Did he call you?”

“No. I thought that he would but he didn’t.  I couldn’t sleep much.  In the morning I drove back over.”

“To see if he was alright?”

“Yeah.”

“So was he?”

“Yeah. He was normal, sort of.  But he didn’t remember that I was there the night before.”

“What?”

“Sue.  Remember Sue?  Well she’s an AA person.  She said he was probably in a blackout, I guess.”

“Oh fuck me.”

“So he had an audition.  He was calm as shit too. He didn’t remember a fucking thing about the night before. He left for the audition said he’d call me when he was done.”

“Did he call you?”

“Yeah. But later.”

“What did he say?”

“Well he knew that I wanted to see him.  He knew I wanted to talk to him.”

“Yeah?”

“So he asked me if I wanted to come out.  He asked me to meet him at Joe’s.”

“Joe’s?”

“It’s a place we go. A Mexican restaurant with a bar for interesting people.”

“Interesting people?”

“Yeah. Um, it is his kind of his bar.  It is his place to go. Well, it’s one of them.  It’s full of interesting people. Artists and various other crazies.  Some of the people in there are purely nuts, I’d say.  You know. Local color. I like it in there.  It’s very charged and like I said, it’s interesting.”

“So he took you in his inner circle?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah. I am all the way in his life, if that’s what you mean.  This is his bar.  Well, it’s his hideaway bar. He has the upscale place he goes which is where I met him. And he’s got his breakfast place next door. You know. It’s ethnic.  Greeks own it so you know they got a kick out of me.  An old man, Greek owns it. A Greek family so you know. They adopted me on the spot.”

“I can imagine.”

“Right.  You’re too good for him, they said. You know. They teased him like that.  What are you doing with such an ugly man, they’d say.” I laughed. “Then he’d act like he was the luckiest man in the world. You know.  He acts his part, I act mine.”

“You blush and shit?”

“Right.”

“Don’t you get sick of that?”

“No, not really, I like the sex.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “How could I forget?”

“I don’t know. How could you forget? Anyway, it’s no big deal to me.  I like to talk shit in a bar, you know that.  I love a good dive bar and that’s what this is.  It is a superior collection of misfit toys.”

“You go there dressed up?”

“Oh yeah. Of course.”

“Okay, so you meet him at Joe’s and then what?”

“He kisses me.  He kisses me and he hugs me for a long time.  Then he plays the song we listen to in there.  It’s on the jukebox.”

“What song?”

“Uh. Bob Marley. Single Bed.  Uh… I mean, Is This Love?”

“No Sinatra? Well, I will have to tell XXXXX about that.”

“He plays Sinatra too. Come on, Annalisa. I have Sinatra coming out of ears.  Anyway, this is not the Sinatra place.   We have a few places. You know.  He has a different persona for different places.  We do “refined” down the street. This place is gritty.  Uh, like if I slapped him or something in this place, we’d fit right in.  Fwaap! Get it? Do you know what I mean?

“I think so.”

“Well it’s all passion.  But in this place we play the relationship kind of darkly sexual. We got there to brood and exude, you know?  To be seen doing that, I mean.”

“There is always an audience?”

“Yeah. Oh hell yeah, everywhere, outside of sex. Sex is private, this other stuff is playing.  But anyway he likes Marley too and tonight, this is the song. He plays the song on the jukebox and he sings it to me but not like usual.”

“What do you mean? He sings in the bar?”

“Yeah. This fuckin’ guy stops traffic with his singing.  He’s good.  He’s really fucking good, but he’s not singing in this bar, this time though.  He is singing in my ear. Perfectly, too. He sings so fucking well, it’s painful but he is drunker than snot.”

“You mean that he is in a blackout?”

I snorted. “How the fuck would I know? You tell me. Was he in a fucking black out?  He was drunk, that’s for sure.  Way drunker than I’d ever seen him but compelling.  Know what I mean?  I have seen some drunks as you know but this one doesn’t slobber, right? If he did, I would walk out and never come back because you know how I hate that.”

“So what do you do?”

“I don’t know what to do. I look at the Greek, but they aren’t getting in it. He’s their customer, you know. I can see the loyalty. Regardless what I do, it will not impact the relationship they have with him which is good really because there is nothing to consider.  I ask him if he wants to go home.”

“Does he?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he does and he asks me to drive him.”

“So do you?”

“Yeah.  Yeah, of course. I get him in my car.”

“Where is his car?”

“He walks. You don’t need a car where he lives.  His neighborhood it great.  Walking is part of the ambiance. He doesn’t drive unless he is leaving the neighborhood.”

“Saves on tickets, too.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I said with a chuckle.

“Then what?”

“We get to his place. It’s just a few blocks away and he wants me to drop him off in front.”

“You don’t want to go up?”

“Uh… I don’t know. What I really want is this to all be a bad dream. I don’t have a plan.”

“So what’s he do?”

“Well he starts getting all emotional and sincere.”

“Acting?”

“I don’t know. Probably. He’s drunk as shit.  Maybe.  He tells me this lecture about how good I am and stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  And then he dumps me.”

“Whaaat?”

“Right. He says that he does not want to see me anymore.”

“What do you do?”

“I start crying.”

“What’s he do?”

“He hugs me and then he tells me that he won’t do it again.  He said it was the last time he would ever hug me.”

“Fucking drama king, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he is but he means it.”

“He means it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, he does.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well first, he said that he was a cokehead.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“No.”

“What did you say?”

“I didn’t believe him.  How could he be a cokehead and me, not know it?”

“I don’t know. What did he say?”

“He reached in his pocket but he was too drunk.  He asked me to reach in his pocket for him.”

“And he was carrying cocaine?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuckin’ A.”

“Then what?”

“Heroin too. He shoots up.  Um… he tells me that he was strung out in Vietnam.  He says that everyone was. He started crying, said he was back on it.”

“Did you believe him?”

“No. I was wailing. I did not want to believe him, are you kidding? Because I felt like I was dying.  Anyway, I tried to talk to him about the drugs.  Um… he would not let me touch him. He did not want me to touch him. It was very clear.  Well… he knew everywhere in the city that he could go for help. You know. He was saying things like, 18 beds here, and 24 beds there…”

“Oh fuck.  It sounds like he has been in and out of treatment.”

“Right. I guess.  Yes he has.  He was pretty fucked up.  He was unbelievably fucked up. Surreally fucked.”

“You never saw this before?”

“No. Hell no.  I’d seem him drunk but not stupefied and not on heroin for chrissakes. Or cocaine, for that matter. I know when someone is snorting cocaine.”

“So is he going to get treatment?”

“No. No, he’s not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

“You don’t think I tried?  No.  No treatment. He was pretty fucking emphatic about that. Very, I mean.  He wants the drugs. He wants me to leave him alone to do them.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t think there is much of a choice.”

“Are you going to try again?”

I started crying. “I already have tried again. Look.  He was very clear.  Abundantly.  He doesn’t want to see me again, ever.”

“He means it?”

“Yeah.  Um… he was trying.  He was trying to do something… be with me I guess. But now he’d rather not.  He wants me to go away and stay away.”

“What about…”

I interrupted. “He was acting. He was acting like he wasn’t a cokehead, right?”  I shook my head.  “He was acting like he did not have a problem that he has. He doesn’t want to do it any more. He wants to go balls to the wall with the drugs.”

“He said this?”

“Yes.”

“Are you alright?”

“Fuck no, I’m not all right.  Are you crazy? I AM NOT ALL RIGHT!”

“Okay, okay.  So what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?  What would you suggest?  I am going to get over him.’

“How?”

“I don’t fuckin’ know, do I? I want off the phone, okay? I am sorry. This is what happened.  This is his secret.”

“Okay. Sorry Elsa.  Call if you need to.”

“I will.  I will.  I want to go, okay?  Goodbye.”

*Click

Don’t tell me I’ve not been ’round the block with Venus square Neptune. My Venus was conjunct his ascendant and Pluto. His stellium in Scorpio was conjunct Neptune in my chart.

I never saw him again.  It took me about 6 months to recover. When I did recover, I did it via a song.

I don’t have any regrets or hard feelings regarding this relationship.  We both took a chance / experimented and I consider it no harm, no foul.  He had a Sadge Moon to match my Moon Jupiter so his candor was appreciated and I know he appreciated my respecting his wishes.

Respect is big for the fire signs, I don’t think people realize.

Skip to – “What song?”