“You’re right, of course.
We’ve never seen an
end to disco. Not even
a tiny pause from it.
Probably never will.” I
was feeling melancholy.
The conversation was
definitely not helping.
I knew there were places
to which I could transport,
times from the past wherein
I was having a blast, any of
the numerous favorite places
in which I’ve traveled, and I’m
not talking astral projection or
futuristic beaming or anything,
but if I could just stop in my
tracks, close my eyes, and
then just imagine being
there—in such a way that
I would be there, in that
other place that wasn’t
here—which would cheer
me up in less than an instant.
But for some reason this was
by all appearances a pretty
important conversation that
my best friend felt compelled
not only to have, but to con
tinue, as morning turned into
afternoon, and then afternoon
turned into evening. We’d
practically walked the entirety
of the city, block by block. That
would normally have been a treat,
as well. But not today. Not with
this conversation. Don’t get me
wrong, I love to engage with my
pals, with those I share intimacy,
people I barely know but strike me
immediately and with no particular
reason I am usually able to even
articulate or discern, as intriguing,
and with those with whom I might
have that giddy and also entirely
too inexplicable feeling of giddiness
at wanting to be more than just
rhetorically intimate. This has
always been a thing, certainly
one the most important ones,
that I am always seeking, a
bond, one that, well, after it’s
established in any way, the
point always seems to me to
be to see how complete that
might become, how truly I
might know each an all of
these folks with whom I’ve
invested day after day,
tirelessly, energetically
seeking as raw and as
real as is humanly
possible who, WHO,
each are, my friends,
my intimates, my hand-
picked family, my cohort.
It was practically the
closest thing to religion
that existed for me, and
for decades. And so I did
not stop in my tracks. I
continued to listen to my
best friend speak of the
past in that nostalgic way
in which it was clear that
he’d much rather be there
than here, and the disdain
he had for himself because
that was such an impossibility,
and that, like it or not, and he
did not, he had to live in the
now. I gave him my ear and
my empathy and a bit of my
own voice for all of those hours.
But in the end, I began to wonder,
and I do mean really wonder, why
I had devoted myself so religiously
to all of these bonds I had built in
collaboration with the closest people
I had in my life. And before the day
was done, before I parted ways with
Hal—who was beginning to seem to
regain a bit of his natural but subdued
cheer and what counted for him as
hope, as positivity—yes, around the
time we parted ways, or shortly
thereafter, I began to not only
question why, but wondered
about the reality of it all, the
myth of such bonds. And,
inevitably, as I arrived home
and readied for bed, entirely
too contemplative for such
a daunting night as this,
began to question the very
existence of these so-called
intimates. I finally found a
way to slip into a modicum
of sleep by convincing my
self to attempt to relish the
performance of it all. This
life. My buddies. My loves.
