It was a longer than normal day at work. I haven’t slept well the past few nights, nor eaten properly. I am driving home hopped up on caffeine, majorly. My body is weak, tired, shaking a little. But it is sunny, and I am headed home, and everything is pretty close to being almost perfect. I riffle through the CDs in my console. I come up with Pearl Jam’s newest album, which is self-titled but affectionately referred to as The Avocado Album. I slide it into the CD player, which eats it like it does any other CD. The first track, Life Wasted, begins to play. The opening riff is monstrous, thunderous, and somehow sparse.
Bum-bum-dumdum, Bum-ba-dumdum!
Then the drum and bass kick in:
BUM-BUM-DUMDUN (wuaa!), BUM-BA-DUMDUM!
I know before Eddie even sings a word that somehow I am now hearing this song for the first time. Months ago, when the CD first came out, I knew I had a connection to this song, as most people probably feel. Anyone who is through something, on the other side of something, who is doing good or feeling better, probably feels a connection to this song. I’ve used a quote from it as my MySpace headline more than once. Maybe it’s just that there are so many Pearl Jam songs that are already personal to me, so many that I’ve internalized, that for awhile there wasn’t room for one more Big One, one more emotional juggernaut for me to process. But today, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, that opening riff hit me square in the gut like a dead fish on the poop deck, and I knew I was in for a ride. He started singing, and I started to sing with him, loud and with more gusto that I expected:
You’re always saying that there’s something wrong. I’m starting to believe that was your plan all along. Death came around, forced to hear it’s song. And know tomorrow can’t be depended on…
It’s seven years ago. Younger me sits by a fire, a bonfire of sorts, in the yard of some tiny cabin in some vast woods. I’m by myself on a makeshift bench formed by a log and two large rocks. In the cabin, 50 yards away in the darkness, loud thumping rap music is playing and the kids from work are dancing. Some of them are probably making out. The stars are out in force but I can barely see them. My head spins wildly, like the amusement park rides I’ve always been too scared to get on. I’m wondering where all my money went. I got a 600 dollar paycheck just three days ago, and upon opening my wallet at the liquor store this afternoon, found only a twenty. And I cashed the whole thing–there’s none in the bank. I had enough for a bottle of gin and a pack of smokes. After the party tonight, I’ll be distinctly fucked. Nobody wanders over to sit next to me and chat, because I turned into “Wolfman” an hour ago. I snipe at everybody who comes near, or tell them there’s no God, or their shirt is ugly, or they’re fat, or whatever I deem to be wrong with them. I drink my gin and coke and my stolen wine coolers like they were Gatorade and wander off into a meadow, where I pass out wondering where my money went and why women don’t jump at the chance to sleep with me the way they used to.
I’ve seen the home inside your head, all locked doors and unmade beds. Open sores unattended. Let me say just once that–
It’s eight years ago. Younger me is crouched alongside the house I’m sharing with a married couple. It’s somewhere around 2 AM, and it’s raining. It’s not pouring–this isn’t a movie, after all–it’s just drizzling. But it’s cold. It’s that barely-autumn part of autumn, where it wants to be summer during the day and winter at night, and fools like me refuse to change from shorts to pants. I have no idea why I’m not inside. Maybe I’m locked out and maybe I’m not. I’m drinking the cooking wine my friends kept in the bottom cabinet, beside the dishwasher. It’s salty as hell; it tastes like flavored tears. Even for someone in my desperate position, I must drink slowly or risk vomiting. It’s a small bottle–probably two liters, but it takes me over an hour to finish it, chain-smoking menthol cigarettes and, yes, singing Pearl Jam tunes. When it’s finally empty, I find I’m not even buzzed. But I managed to keep the shakes away, and somehow (and somewhere) fall asleep for an evening of listless, dark-dread dreams.
I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
I have tasted a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
It’s seven years ago. The alcoholic girl I am dating has stood me up again. I don’t even like her that much, but it’s fun to have a girlfriend after all these years without one, and especially nice that she doesn’t even look at me funny, no matter how much I drink, and she lets me fuck her no matter how drunk I am. We made plans to meet at 2 PM at Nell’s Supermarket, because she has to drop her sister off there for work. I prepared for the evening by waking up at 11, showering, dressing and getting thoroughly drunk. Swaying and stinking I left my Dad’s house and drove the 20 minutes to meet her. At 2:30 I already know she’s not coming, but I keep hope alive by getting the ready-made gin and coke out of my car. I’ve always got one in there, in a McDonald’s Super Sized soda cup. I replenish it every time I go home, so it’s always full. It’s a sunny winter day and the sun sets early. The black flat pavement cools like a huge ice pack. I wander around in the dark, sipping my drink and smoking, looking in people’s cars, admiring the red Exit sign glow in the closed banks, talking to some local skateboarders about God-knows-what. I pass out in my driver’s seat around 7 PM. I awake, with no saliva in my mouth and an intense need to pee, at 3 AM. I drive back to Dad’s house and pee in the lawn.
The world awaits just up the stairs…leave the pain for someone else. There’s nothing back there for you to find…or was it you, you left behind?
It’s a little over six years ago. It’s my first morning waking up in rehab. It’s a strange, glowy feeling. I need a drink, that much is clear. I also can’t seem to move. It’s about 18 hours since I had a drink, which is much longer than I’ve gone over the past year. The shaking is bad. The fever is worse. And yet, I am not afraid, because here I am safe. Here I cannot get it. Here they will make me whole.
It’s a 3 bed room, but I am alone in it. The other 2 beds lay undisturbed, made up with precision like a hotel bed. My blinds are drawn but sun beats through them, is hot and sticky like summer, although it’s December. Shadows of people move across the window, they laugh and blow smoke out of their mouths. I wish I could join them out there, but am afraid. I’m afraid I won’t ever be able to move again, I’m afraid I won’t fit in, I’m afraid they won’t identify with me, I’m afraid they’ll call me short and laugh, I’m afraid I won’t know what to do. I’m afraid I’ll want to drink for the rest of my life, always and forever, without ceasing. I’m afraid everyone will know that about me.
You’re always saying you’re too weak to be strong. You’re harder on yourself than just about anyone. Why swim the channel just to get this far? Halfway there, why would you turn around?
It’s six years ago. This is to be my last day living with my mother. It was a nice, idyllic half-year stay in the countryside of New Jersey. Almost a second childhood. Her home, like her, a womb. Her three silent cats who seemed to know I was nursing back to health. The sun-drenched linoleum floors while I had the place to myself, shiny like a summer lake. I watched the years final snow melt from my bedroom window and watched Spring inundate the thirsty world with water, and green, and everywhere insects. I gained real weight and shaved everyday, ate candy like I meant it and apples, too. I wrote so many poems about so many things, my mind surprised by time and clarity. I cried with joy and sadness as I drove away, toward home, toward my boyhood town, to see if I could now do it this time. To try to live on my own without fear.
Darkness comes in waves. Tell me, why invite it to stay? You’re warm with negativity, yes, comfort is an energy, but why let the sad song play?
It’s three years ago. I’m moving the last of my boxes into my my first very-own apartment, the first place that I will live totally by myself. It’s a nice, wood-panelled place with a pretty big living room and off-street parking. I’m not worried about affording it, or about being alone, or fitting in or being able to do the next right thing. I walk into the bathroom, looking at the sink and the mirror. My sink and mirror. I just stand and stare, because I can’t believe I have my own sink and my own mirror.
I have faced it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Oh I escaped it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Having tasted a life wasted, I’m never going back again!
Oh I erased it, a life wasted! I’m never going back again!
Notes From the Fire 