on betrayal

(or boys will be boys)

My 1st summer home from college started well enough. I was staying with my parents, I had access to a car, money for gas and my best friend in the whole world. That summer we spent so many night sitting on Miami Beach at night just talking about everything. We loved Madonna. We were instant RuPaul fans. We’d quote Torch Song Trilogy and launch into stupid medleys of telenovela theme songs. A couple years older than me, also Cuban and … his name was also Alex.

I met Alex my first year at the New World School of the Arts. Also a Hialeah resident, the school bus would pick him up a little after me and all the kids on the bus naturally became friends. He was just unlike anyone I had ever known … except perhaps my dad. I had thought later perhaps I had a crush on him and perhaps I did, but when I recall the feelings they were distinctly different from the crushes on boys that came later. I didn’t desire Alex. I just wanted to know him and perhaps have him know me.

When my dad read my journal mere days after I admitted to myself “I might be gay” in those pages, the closet door was demolished and there I was … a 15 year old kid who had just made a huge change in his school life for the second time in two years, therefore causing an upheaval in his social life, living with these intense emotions that derail him and make him feel out of sorts and just plain not like other people, experiencing intense culture shock at his new school because he finally left Hialeah and it’s own kind of homogeneity, just having just admitted something quite intensely shameful and scary TO HIMSELF, and denied the luxury of TAKING HIS TIME. To this day I struggle to have empathy with people who take forever to come out because they are “processing at their own speed”. I’m not proud of that but that courtesy was never given to me. Not only was it never given to me but I somehow didn’t even think it was something I had the right to. No one was advocating for me in Hialeah Florida, 1989.

So I told Alex the next day. I had no idea why I knew he was safe. He didn’t blink when I said I was gay. He just smiled as if to say “welcome to the club, queen!” He became the big brother I never had. And for once, I felt like I truly had an ally in this world. He introduced me to and included me in his group of friends which included … his boyfriend. I was impressed. Gay in high school with a boyfriend. Well done! Our names immediately linked us as we were immediately dubbed Alex-squared. It suited these two gay Cuban Hialeah teens. And I truly felt a lot less alone.

My summer back from college was a lot of what Alex and I had done previously. He had gone away to school in North Carolina and didn’t seem to like it. He came back home and was sort of in limbo. His family had had a lot of issues I’ll not go into here but his brother and parents had stuff going on and I assume he was coping. We were both rather witchy and that spilled into some interest in New Age stuff. He did A Course in Miracles and at one of those classes met a woman who convinced him he had psychic abilities. She coached him to channel his spirit guide so he could do service as a medium. Alex began channeling his guide (ironically something my dad was also in the process of doing) and my attitude at the time was perhaps there was some kind of access to some kind of awareness but I also didn't truly believe Alex (nor my father) were being taken over by a spirit. At some point I’ll do some writing on my history with divination and clairvoyance and how it was a natural part of my culture as a kid, but I sat with Alex’s guide a few times a willing guinea pig and listening to how the reason I can’t find a boyfriend is I didn’t love myself enough (shocker!!!). Like if your best friend isn’t gonna help you practice your psychic powers who will? I swear sometimes I love how camp my youth was.

Me not finding a boyfriend was hard. Alex was actually quite successful with sex and dating while we were friends. He always had a cutie despite feeling insecure about his looks and weight so he was performing some kind of magic (perhaps he truly had psychic abilities?). I began to resent him, not for his romantic successes but rather for how I felt this very weird chill from him the minute a guy entered his consciousness. When we were out with friends I could sometimes just feel totally dropped while he ran off to flirt or get silly with someone I perceived as cuter and cooler than I was. What made it worse was no one came to be with me when Alex would just go. Much later I had heard about the “favorite person” phenomenon when I had thought what turned out to be my ADHD was being borderline. For a borderline, the favorite person is just someone who manages to keep them regulated. Sometimes it’s very easy and effortless like it was with me and Alex, but when the favorite person acts independently, it poses a threat to the borderline. On some level I do believe something like that was happening to me because when I sensed a distance, I would just go dark.

By the end of the summer, we were out in a newly hip South Beach and I ran into an NYU friend named … well wouldn’t you know Alex. NYU-Alex was with a friend I was immediately in heat for. It was like that adolescent lightning strike that focuses every molecule in your body on that absolutely gorgeous thing before you.

(And wouldn't you know … I can’t remember this guy’s name. It wasn’t Alex, I can tell you that much.)

“I’m gonna hit on him,” I told Alex as I lit a cigarette. VERY unlike me. I was not that assertive then. Psychic-Alex said “Do it! I’m so proud of you!”

Every club we hit that night I was grinding up against this guy, I was grabbing his shirt, playing with his hair. And he was happily responding, so I was a bit confused when we were all invited to crash at his parents’ condo and NYU-Alex was hooking up in one room and Psychic-Alex, My Future Boyfriend and I were going to sleep in the same bed in another room. I figured well, logistics. We drank. No drunk driving. Besides My Future Boyfriend’s in New York, so I don’t have to hook up with him right now.

I woke up and something was going on. I turned around and Psychic-Alex and My Future Boyfriend were having sex. After my insides plummeted to my feet and bounced back up, I sat up and calmly said, “Hey Alex, I would like you to drive me home since we came in your car. And I would like to leave immediately.” I got dressed, waited for him in the car, and seethed.

“What the fuck?” I asked when Alex finally showed. “I told you I was going to hit on him!” Alex said nothing. “I’ll drive you home.”

He drove me home and didn’t get out.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Back,” he said.

Psychic-Alex eventually moved to New York City, I gave him a part in my first play produced outside of school, and he met a guy immediately (they’re still together).

I felt that chill. If I could name it, it was the feeling of being exiled. I was no longer important to him. No friend time. No movies. No hanging out. We were roommates and I hardly saw him. I kept trying to fix the relationship. It wasn’t desperation. It was love. He was family to me and I was being iced out.

And now I remember the ways he would criticize any guy I happened to like. Too ugly, Too weird. Too pale. Too OLD. I was naturally drawn to daddies like many younger men proudly are now but Alex thought I was “cute enough to get someone my own age.” He set the shape of my gayness and honestly it grated at me until I moved out.

Psychic-Alex became a character called Benny in my play the silent concerto. I made Benny a hybrid between Alex and my partner in crime Scott … Benny helped me release Psychic-Alex because over time he just became more and more Scott. The characters tease each other but it’s clear there’s a sweetness there. I find that fitting. Scott and I have have had our rupture and then he’s in my life again and that sweetness never left. On the other hand, Psychic-Alex and I would reconnect via social media and his response to me showing some gratitude about how he helped me come out was just odd. I don’t know what it was. Like he was wincing.

I finally got around to seeing Death Becomes Her on Broadway last night. The original film came out my first year in NYU and it’s become one of those camp staples for me like it has for many other gay men. Perhaps it was a little of the early 90s baked into the story, but at the end of “Tell Me, Ernest” I went cold. I was furious at the entire situation on Helen’s behalf and also furious that Ernest couldn’t seem to say no (stay tuned for “on men thinking with their dicks (or what do you mean i have to date these people?)” I was thrown back into that bed with Psychic-Alex and My Past Future Boyfriend.

After the show, my unease had changed into giddiness. There’s nothing I love more than a well executed stage comedy. They usually demand a kind of balletic precision and a sense of timing that’s akin to a crackerjack jazz ensemble. Megan Hilty, Jennifer Simard and Christopher Sieber were serving bebop at the Blue Note level virtuosity. I’m a little gagged I’ve gone to the theater twice now and … had fun. Elated, I went home, went to bed and woke up thinking about … we’ll call him The Cowboy.

The Cowboy was someone who in hindsight seemed a social inevitability for me. A gay singing writer into nudism and yoga was bound to become my buddy at some point and well we just fell into each other’s lives. We did the beach, we did Fire Island, we did shows, we did concerts, read each other’s novels, and we gave each other support when shit went down. We were both products of an upbringing that, despite our charms, made us very inhibited around guys. Managing that started taking its toll for both of us in our late 40s and while we were independently downing The Velvet Rage and The Annotated Works of Brene Brown Volumes I-IV we had a series of lunches that meant a great deal to me. I felt like I was able to be intimate with a man in a way that really made me feel seen for the first time.

He was tall and really seemed to exaggerate this kind of slow burn. When he turned it on it was tall dark and handsome meets strong silent type. It seems hilarious my little ass picks the guy exuding the open west he grew up in. He had this stature that even at him at his most neurotically insecure and me quite frankly GIVING he gets all the attention and I literally don’t exist because they’re looking up and not down. And while I envied him this ease in attracting attractive people (always a hard one that), I never really had a thing about his height, it was just that masculine presence. I always envisioned him as The Marlboro Man who decided to become a mild mannered professor. Hence, The Cowboy.

Our pairing when out could often result in my being razzed about being short. One guy assumed we were lovers and said “how does he not destroy you when he fucks you?” and I was like why did this total stranger feel the need to just go there? He’d also been my reliable witness at a many a random bit of nastiness at bars. One Folsom East, I was busy making out with another shortie and someone asked The Cowboy who was standing near by if this was the Munchkin section (for the record, I did not stop kissing that man!).

After a Fire Island week where a housemate’s watercolor pencils and good weed led The Cowboy and I began to have an interest in art. He had found a gay figure drawing group and encouraged me to join. That resulted in what became the first community of artists I had since I left theater. Drawing with these guys was pure love for me. There was no competition, no bitchiness, no hating other people’s work. I also loved the social aspect and I just felt like I had found something kind of special at last and perhaps this new desire to draw would be the reward I had for the sadness I felt not making plays.

When the pandemic happened, I was coming off a really challenging period of unemployment and what I thought was my perfect relationship showed serious rot. My ex and I were on chilly terms by the time he left to go be with his dad who was dying. I had been given an evening schedule at work and I needed the money so I took it. When the lockdowns came, my ex was gone and not interested in including me in the experience of his father’s death. I adored my ex’s dad. He was the only parent of a boyfriend’s I got to bond with. And of course, my ex was in a stressful position and I had no ability to soothe or console or witness or support. His responses to my texts were sporadic, guarded and lacking any openings for closeness. Meanwhile, I’m hearing The Cowboy mentioning something about pods on social media. His pod during the lockdown consisted of a small people he trusted to stay healthy, so he could at least have some human contact.

I did not know about a pod. I lived not far from him. I could have used something like that but … ok …?

“Oh God, why weren’t you in our pod?” The Cowboy asked me later after things opened up. I looked up at him. I swear he had a vape in his mouth like a fucking cigarette. He had been privy to so many texts, particularly after my ex and I broke up. I so desperately needed my besties to get me drunk and tell me men were trash and he was sort of perfunctory in his support after my breakup and now (to paraphrase Death Becomes Her) A QUESTION?

My resentment found no relief because every time The Cowboy and I would hang out, I would be in the middle of telling him something (mind you this might be the first time I have a conversation with someone I didn’t work with in months) and I notice him checking out a guy OVER MY HEAD. I called him out on it and despite his contrition he’d do it again. Or he’d regale me with stories of the hookups he had, their ages, their Instagram handles, and their alt-Twitter, where I could see their assets. He knew I was terrified of sex. I’d lost my job and mysavings and my boyfriend and my social life in two years. Talk therapy was barely making a dent in a depression that had me in emotional and physical pain for about four years total. But of course I was so, so, so happy he and my favorite porn star hooked up the previous weekend!!!!

I had been so anxious about selling drawings because making a career as a playwright put my writing in a coma. Art was pure pleasure to me. The process felt good. The looking, the mixing of color, the composing. It made everything feel really really good. But I saw the shows The Cowboy was selling his art at were a great way to make community and also see what other people were doing and get inspired. I needed friends. I needed people. I needed connection. Not to mention the show was on Fire Island! I did something incredibly foolish but I sadly could not see what was going on at the time. In my anxiety at doing my first show, being at Fire Island (a historical trigger), being social around gay men who were being sexual all the time (it was that kind of trunk show it turned out!) I ran to The Cowboy because he was the one I was closest to and The Cowboy wanted nothing more than to be a whore and get laid. He did not want to be my emotional support blanket. In my defense, I knew I was acting out in a way I could not understand and immediately just did the rest of the weekend as icily as possible because I had two modes. Controlled or running my mouth off. I did not want to be rude or hurt anyone or kill the vibe so I stayed quiet which resulted in everyone thinking I was stuck up and hating on them. And after that weekend, The Cowboy asked for us to try not being in the same place at the same time ever again.

I thought about Alex and how I’d go dark when I sensed him go.

I threw that on The Cowboy, and I can’t blame his repulsion. I had a need that extended past my conscious mind and into that place Jung called the shadow. I had no understanding of the process in my head and if I had I would have done a million things differently.

I miss my friend. In my mind all I wanted was to be close with someone because I was going through a lot and I felt like I couldn’t understand why my cries for help went unheard. In our final conversation he said to me “you know it’s really selfish of you to say you felt abandoned by your ex. His father was dying! You made it all about yourself!” If there was one thing I struggled with in my last relationship it was that I was so absolutely devoted to this man. When I think about what it means to feel love. Like unconditionally, I think of my ex. I loved being there for him just because. The Cowboy knew that. I told him you try knowing the man you’re madly in love with is in pain and not letting you in, so you in your desire to be as supportive as possible you retreat to your lonely lockdown, impotently praying and sending vibes.

There’s been a lot about this experience that’s full of elipses and mystery. There is also a lot about it that has resulted in some really painful separations while I was suffering from something so much larger than me. I would constantly offer to make amends for anything I haven’t made amends for but people just don’t want to bother and I have to accept that. It’s the result of a series of actions I made and that’s that.

A lot of this mystery has been eating at me lately because given that it’s not getting resolved soon, I don’t see a reason to carry it anymore. I know I was not an easy person to be around after 2018. I know. I have not been able to identify what it was I did in so many of my relationships I need to make amends for because in many instances people made serious decisions about my character based on ungenerous misunderstandings … never mind accountability from their end.

Writing helps move out of me and somewhere else. Writing also allows me to own my side of the story, including the fact that Psychic-Alex, The Cowboy, my ex-bestie, and of course my ex-boyfriend were all loved in a way where everything in me aligns. I hum. I can always, always see what I found beautiful in each of them. In Death Becomes Her they talk about it as being someone’s “person.” They were all wholeheartedly my person. And when I own the ways I was insane, I also own the ways the very best I hadwas given to these four.

I think of them all and their struggles. To feel the empathy, even at a distance, brings a bit of the love back. I know what each of them has been through. I would defend them in an instant if they asked. That feels good to know.