I Loved You More

by Tom Spanbauer

  “No,” she says, “I can’t do this.”

  “It’s the same as writing,” I say. “Like Hank always says. You got to go to where it hurts.”

  Her breath in through her nose is long and slow.

  Slow, real slow, Ruth turns her face to the light.

  17.

  The way it is

  THE NEXT YEAR IS THE YEAR OF DR. MARK HARDY, ANTIDEPRESSANTS, and Ruth Dearden. Ruth might as well move in with all the time she spends at my house. She sleeps over or gets up in the middle of the night and drives home. We always stay at my house because I’m afraid to go to her house. The way she loves me I don’t understand it. I’m a mess. Sleep is the problem. I’ve just forgotten how to sleep.

  With my insurance and my hospital, I have no other choice but Dr. Mark Hardy. When the Paxil doesn’t work, I have to let two weeks go by so that all the Paxil is out of my system. So then I can start on another drug, which I have to take for two weeks. Dr. Hardy says that often a patient will feel a speedy rush but almost always that rush stops when the body gets used to the drug.

  My body never gets used to it. I go from Paxil to Serzone to Lexapro to Zoloft to Wellbutrin and a shitload of others, but the speedy rush never stops.

  All those months I stonewalled AIDS, forcing my body to withstand something I was in total denial of has hurt my body. Maybe totally fucked up my endocrine system or whatever system it is that every once in a while lets you rest.

  The year with Dr. Mark Hardy really is a year of taking a drug that feels like I’m taking acid laced with rat poison, then going off that drug for two weeks, then starting another drug that fucks me up a different, even more heinous way.

  IT’S LATE SUMMER and Dr. Hardy is taking two weeks off. I’m just at the point of switching from Serzone to Lexapro or whatever the fuck drug it is, and somehow I misunderstand his direction and I don’t wait long enough between the two drugs.

  Usually, the way I get through the mornings is to go out on the sidewalk and practice my tai chi. But those two weeks, mornings are so bad that all I know what to do is sit in a chair and breathe. I try to wait until after lunch to start popping Xanax, but that week I start the Xanax as soon as I finish my scrambled eggs. It’s summer and hot and so I set the chair in my basement and I sit in the chair and breathe. That specific kind of breathing where you bring the breath into your belly, then move the breath down to just above your dick, then to your perineum, then across your asshole to the middle of your back, then you bring the breath up your back to your neck, from your neck to the top of your head, then down to your forehead, and then you let the breath out of your mouth and nose.

  That’s all I do. I sit on a folding chair and concentrate on nothing else but moving my breath through my body this way.

  All around me it’s a horror. Ghosts and goblins and apparitions and animals and ancestors and spirits dance. Huck-a-buckin’. I know about apparitions. They aren’t really there. I’m the one creating them. But that just makes things all the worse. The dead aunts and uncles, the Shetland pony, the fucking red devil with the pitchfork that huck-a-buck around me aren’t nobody’s fault but my own.

  Outside, what is inside.

  The Secret: you create your own reality.

  It’s October before I can get an appointment with Dr. Hardy. That morning, Ruth can’t make it, so I drive my Volkswagen to the hospital. I don’t know how in the hell I can drive but I drive. Looking back on it, it’s an impossible thing for me to try to do. But those days just getting up in the morning is impossible. Walking into the kitchen, impossible. Opening the refrigerator door, impossible. Everything’s impossible, so I drive across town.

  At the hospital I can’t bear the thought of getting on the elevator, so I walk the two flights of steps down to the narrow gray hallway, dark, that looks like a lobotomy movie. Mental Health, the sign above the reception desk. They’ve called my name and I’m standing with my toes just behind the line of bright yellow tape.

  The guy in front of me has just asked to use the phone.

  The receptionist, an African-American woman with a great smile that makes me wonder how on earth she can keep smiling in this gray basement that way, smiles at the guy in front of me and asks if it’s a local call.

  It’s a local call and the receptionist hands the phone up to the guy.

  The guy is just gray like everything else is gray. He’s shorter than me, no piercings or tattoos. The kind of haircut in the Fifties we called Boy’s Regular. Gray khaki pants and a blue winter parka. It’s when he dials I can see the bandages on his wrist. I can’t hear all that he says, but what I do hear:

  Suicide, protease inhibitors, psych meds.

  Dr. Mark Hardy is tanned. He gives me a big smile. I don’t smile. He asks me how I’ve been doing. I don’t tell him about the red devil with the pitchfork and the huck-a-buckin’ Shetland pony and the dead aunts and uncles. Just smile. He tells me to sit down and I sit down and then he sits. He’s going through my file. It’s a manila envelope with AIDS stamped in black over my typewritten name. I’m about ready to tell Dr. Hardy there’s no fucking way I can do this anymore when he makes the remark. It’s an off-hand remark, as if he’s speaking to himself. The way a scientist might speak aloud something of unusual interest. What he says is this is: you know it is possible that Serzone combined with Lexapro could actually open up an avenue of fear in the brain.

  Avenue of fear is all Big Ben needs. I get up and walk out of Dr. Hardy’s office.

  I don’t ever go back.

  In the bathroom, on the way out, I take a leak. It’s a gray room with a fluorescent light, one urinal, one toilet stall. The piss out of me is spraying down onto the holes in the bottom of the urinal. The door behind me opens, and a guy walks into the toilet stall and locks the latch. I don’t ever see him but I can hear him in there. Within seconds he is weeping. Huge deep sobs. I press my hand against the toilet stall. Then lean my head in. It’s all the help I have to give.

  ALL THE WHILE I’m writing. Big Ben won’t have it any other way. I write at night when I can’t sleep. AIDS and New York. All that death and fear. It’s like taking acid so you can take acid. Only now I’m not writing about other people in the past. I’m writing about the virus that’s in me that’s trying to kill me. When I’ve finished a chapter, I read my pages to Ruth. Her critique is great. I always listen to what she has to say. Mostly though it’s important just to hear myself read aloud in front of her.

  By March, I’m teaching once a week. But it’s just too hard to do alone, so Ruth steps up and Ruth and I start teaching together. Most of my old students drop out. Ruth, who was once their peer, is now their teacher. It just doesn’t work. But the new students, and there are still plenty of new students, accept Ruth right off. Ruth really brings something new to class too. The way she talks about conflict and tension so different from how I usually talk about voice and character. And we share the money 70-30.

  Ruth is looking great. She’s lost a lot of weight and her new pair of nerdy girl glasses are just right for her, plus she’s got a new hairdo. I actually go into the Salon Vogue with Ruth and talk to Nancy, Ruth’s hairdresser, because Nancy won’t ever listen to Ruth when she tells her how she wants her hair cut. Nancy and I have a little showdown when I give her the hair tip and tell her to stop the shit with the bangs already. And highlights. Ruth’s red hair could use some highlights. Nancy is forty years old with Farrah Fawcett hair and she’s no match for Queen Lowlighta.

  When Ruth walks out of Salon Vogue that day, her hair brushed up off her face, she’s finally got a fucking forehead. And that pair of erector-set plastic monstrosities she called glasses are gone. What’s left is a face. Ruth Dearden finally looks like who she is. A fucking beautiful intelligent woman.

  That day we go secondhand shopping and we buy Ruth a tacky polyester-leopardskin pants suit, a summer cocktail dress from the Fifties, and a red feathered boa. High heels. Mules when she walks, how the shoes flap against her feet.
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  Ruth just kept getting brighter and brighter. Almost like My Fair Lady with Ruth, watching her change, become more confident. Really, that year, that terrible year, those fucking sleepless fucking nights, Ruth was the only thing that saved me.

  I KNOW, I know. What about sex with Ruth and me.

  With the antidepressant war going on in my body, and anxiety levels off the charts, three and at the most four hours of sleep a night, I mean take it from a guy who knows what it’s like not to have a dick. Those days before Viagra, with all those antidepressants coursing through me, I had no dick.

  With death so close every day, though, a part of me did think my dick should rise up in hope against all the despair. And I figure if I was just dealing with death, then maybe I could’ve stepped up and pierced the darkness, so to speak, but, unlike in the old days, my dick not getting hard had nothing to do with me. Back in the old days, before the magic of Atlanta and Hank, my dick was buried alive gasping for breath. But with antidepressants, it was a totally different story. Especially with what they call the SSRIs. Which was all that Dr. Mark Hardy was prescribing for me. With SSRIs, man, there ain’t no dick that’s trying to breathe. Because there ain’t no dick. It’s chemical, man. The dick is dead.

  Not that I cared. Just getting through a day, the fact I’d gained a pound and that my lungs were free to breathe again was something. So I wasn’t really thinking about my dick. And neither was Ruth. Not at first.

  So many nights, Ruth got out her geranium-scented oil and gave me a massage. Really, I don’t know if I can tell you how important Ruth’s touch was. My body actually became a body while she was touching me. There was no anxiety, there was no fear, there was no death. My body wasn’t something that just stumbled through a world it had no connection to. The way Ruth touched me, my body went back to when it did more than carry around fear and depression. I felt solid, alive, grounded. The way Ruth touched me showed my body where it ended and where the world began. Not the world but my world, because the way Ruth touched me, she touched my soul.

  Or whatever it was I used to believe in before I got AIDS.

  Still, though, there was something that troubled me. I can only admit it now. Way down deep was a voice I didn’t want to listen to. Ruth may have been touching my soul but she always missed that other place. What makes a touch erotic.

  Those days, though, by the time I got through the day, I couldn’t do anything but lie down and read or watch TV. When Ruth massaged me, all I did, all I could do really, was lie there and let her touch me. I didn’t massage her, or return her touch. I mean living together as much as we did we were always touching. Holding hands, rubbing each other’s shoulders. Often in bed at night we lay and held each other talking talking ’til one of us conked out, but I never really touched Ruth deep tissue the way she touched me. I didn’t have the strength.

  After some months, though, and I was getting stronger, I wanted to give something back to Ruth. But I had to be safe.

  Then one day early July, it’s so hot Ruth convinces me to get out of the house. It’s a stretch for me, but we decide to go to the naked beach on Sauvie Island.

  That day is a celebration. The following day, Monday, is Ruth’s first day of her new class. There’s a waiting list for my class, and when Ruth proposes that she take my waiting list students and teach a class of her own, I think it’s a good idea. She’ll be teaching at her house and she’s freaked but she could use the money. Really, we’re both excited. It’s a little weird, Ruth starting on her own like that. But I’m all for it. And she’ll still be teaching my class with me.

  And something else. I’ve finished my book. What a fucking relief. But I need some help editing. Ruth says it would be an honor for her to help.

  RUTH IS RIGHT. I’ve got to start getting out. So after lunch, Ruth and I pack up the sardines and the rice crackers and the baked chicken and the coleslaw and the water and the sunblock and the towels and the blanket and the toilet paper.

  The door you got to walk through. It’s my kitchen door, just a wooden door that you open and close and lock at night. But that afternoon, standing at the door, my sweaty hand around the door knob, my kitchen door is more than just a damn door. It is a portal into another world. The step you got to take. Fuck.

  Under my feet, the ground is a waterbed. Deep in my ears, the place that makes balance is a hula hoop. The world, strange slantings and tilts.

  INSIDE RUTH’S HONDA Civic, I’m glad I’m sitting down. Out through the windshield, over Ruth’s feathers and sticks and flowers and leaves on the dashboard, past the bobbing Barbie’s head, the Wonder Woman action figures, the women and fish sticker, I look at the red roof, the cedar shingles of my house. Big Ben can’t believe I’ve become one of those people who’s afraid to leave their house.

  Agoraphobia. But it’s not the marketplace I’m afraid of.

  The windows are down and the wind feels good. Ruth has the music cranked up loud. Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Leviticus.” Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.” The wind at my ears makes me feel like I’m not alone. I’ve actually forgotten how it is to feel to be outside and feel alive like this.

  So weird to be so many ways at once. To be petrified and still enjoy the wind and the music, enjoy Ruth and her crazy car. Which one of you is petrified? Which one enjoys the wind? Who is singing along to the music? Which one is obsessing about Ruth’s tires. They look pretty bare. And the temp gauge on the dashboard. What if the car overheats?

  It’s as if my body went into danger mode and once the danger was past, the needle stayed in the red danger area and didn’t go back to normal. Once you fear like that, and after fearing like that for so long, your body just expects fear.

  Sauvie Island’s parking lot is dusty and the sun is hot. We park close to a Honey Bucket. There are no cars around the Honey Bucket, because it stinks so bad.

  Your body doesn’t forget that you almost shit yourself to death. And the biggest side effect of the AIDS meds is diarrhea. When you go out, the first thing you do is find out where the nearest toilet is and if it’s clean and if it’s got a door you can lock. The days of venturing out into the world are over. You’re on a leash. You can only go so far from a reliable toilet.

  The Honey Bucket on Sauvie Island has a lock all right. But inside it’s twenty degrees hotter and there’s a huge shit smear across the seat of the toilet. Big black flies. Fight or flight. I figure if it comes down to it I’ll dig a hole and shit in the tulies.

  Ruth’s got the cooler with the sardines and the crackers and the water and the fried chicken and the coleslaw.

  What kind of food it is and at what time you have to eat it. There’s no just going to lunch and having a sandwich anymore. The wheat thing and the protein thing are no joke. No sugar. No caffeine. Nothing with any kind of stimulation. Even peppermint tea is out. Really you’re only as good as the last meal you’ve eaten.

  I’ve got the blankets and the towels and the boombox and the sunblock. The beach is crowded. The sun on the sand makes my eyes hurt. The way my head, my whole body feels thick – going on a month now without any antidepressants – I can feel the thickness so much more here in this new place. Really, where can you run to when you are what you’re running from?

  Your adrenals or your pituitary gland or whatever the fuck that’s been strained to the max, there’s just some places now you just can’t go. Inside that store or that restaurant it’s too jammed with people and noise and activity. Forget the fucking mall. It’s the strangest feeling. It’s as if a force actually pushes against you when you walk in. Like this hot bright beach. Dizzy. Try walking in a world that bounces with each step. The way that upsets you. Dizzy ain’t the word for it.

  FINALLY, WE FIND a clump of willows and some shade, a place not too close to any other people. Ruth’s never been naked in public before and with every piece of clothing she takes off, she gets more liberated, more excited. I’m taking off my shorts! I’m taking off my shirt! I’m taking off my bra! I’m ta
king off my panties! Really, being with Ruth sometimes, how everything could seem extraordinary.

  Lying naked in the sun is a wonder. Big Ben gets up the gumption and I go out where the sand is hard and do tai chi on the beach. Ruth takes a thousand photos of me. When I finish my tai chi, I go back to our blanket and Ruth is sleeping. Just like that, she’s sleeping.

  Sleeping. Ordinary people, Ruth, can just lay their body down, rest their head on their arm, even on a blanket in the sand in the sun, and fall asleep.

  Sleep man, fucking sleep.

  There’s a moment when the sun has gone gold and the shadows are long. Everything seems to get quiet. The lapping of the water on the beach. The seagulls. Off somewhere, a Jet Ski. I’m lying on my belly and the sun is on my back. I turn my head and Ruth’s face is right there. She’s awake and alive and so in heaven. On the boombox Ella Fitzgerald is singing dream when you’re feeling blue. Ruth loves the sun and her body is in the sun and she’s with me, her man, and the song is sweet and it’s a beautiful summer day. I see it all in her blue eyes.

  THAT NIGHT IN bed, after Ruth’s massage, I feel so relaxed and in the world. I look down at my thumb and Big Ben reminds me. What are you so afraid of, Mr. Propinquity?

  I pull myself up and lean my back against the bed. Ruth’s blue eyes are deep blue almost purple. Sweat on the skin of her neck and chest. We kiss, I keep expecting that erotic pull in my balls, but there’s nothing. Still if I can’t feel pleasure, maybe Ruth can.

  “Come here,” I say. “And lean against me.”

  Ruth takes her glasses off, folds them, puts them on the nightstand. Slowly, her body settles in between my legs, her back to me. My arms come round to the front of her just under her arms. Surprising, my skinny arms are no bigger around than Ruth’s. But there’s something smaller around about her chest, the otherness of her, then her breasts, full and heavy, the way they hang. Nothing on my body like her breasts, their firmness and their jiggle. I reach my legs out and hook them around Ruth’s legs, pull her legs open wide. My legs, more olive in the skin, hairy, around Ruth’s smooth pink hairless legs. Ruth’s head falls against my shoulder. Her thick red hair, silk against my face. A deep sound in her throat. Laughter. My heart’s beating just behind her heart. I want to do this right. I reach down, rub my hands across her breasts. Full and round, the weight of them, how they are alive and move and bounce. Her nipples, ten times the size of my nipples. Hard nubs big as the end of my little finger. My tongue around and around the channels of Ruth’s ear, my breath. The way our hearts are close. Ruth turns her head, her mouth to my ear. So quiet I barely hear: