Reunion
My 20th High School reunion, to be precise. I wondered at first whether I would actually bother to go. It's not like I have warm, fuzzy memories from that time of my life. I had some good friends. We had some fun. But the golden years they were not.
But now that it is only a few months away, I feel like I want to go. I'm curious. How strange will it be to talk with people I only remember through the haze of 20 years and the warped viewpoint of an adolescent? I know that in some ways, I am not the same person I was. Will I regress? Will it be just as impossible to associate with these people as it used to be?
I know it won't, mainly because I've grown up enough to have a sense of humor about myself.
I now know what my shit is, so I'm not fooled when others try to hoist their shit on me.
But there is one other thing.
Cid won't be there.
Cid the artist, the actor, the architect, the potter, the dancer. Cid of the amazing black curls that at one point fell to his waist. Cid who could do anything he put his mind to.
We went through high school together, with a small group of artistically inclined outcasts. Within this group I was considered to be "off center". In a good way, I was assured. I was laid back, I knew how to listen. Nothing ever seemed to get on my nerves (how little we all knew). Cid was the one everyone wanted to be close to. He was funny and engaging, loyal, sympathetic, and gentle. He worked hard to help support his mother and sisters, who had all been abandoned by their father.
I wish I remembered more of that time...bits and pieces come back. Speeding down a back country road in his Mom's car; going into Boston for First Night and drinking an illegal bottle of Jim Beam to keep warm; going into high end boutiques on Newbury Street with an attitude, and Cid egging me on to try on a $300 dollar rubber dress (which looked fierce, though it felt like I was wearing an inner tube); eating lunches on the catwalk of the auditorium; watching him from the pit as he danced through various high school musicals; going together to the senior prom for the simple reason that we weren't dating, and knew each other well enough to know that we would never date. We just wanted to have fun. We could relax and be ourselves together.
After we graduated, my little group of pals gave me a bon voyage party of Chinese takeout and fuzzy navals on the floor of Cid's bedroom. I'd saved the money I'd earned working throughout junior high and high school, and since I didn't know at that point what the next step was (my grades were mediocre enough to keep me from any real effort towards college) I went to Europe.
For five months, I travelled around with my Eurail and Youth Hostel passes, and somewhere in the middle of the Mediteranean, discovered that I wanted to study art.
Cid had taken a year for himself as well, so when we hooked up again, he told me about the University he was going to. Then he told me to apply. Didn't just tell me...hounded me. When I was accepted, he was the first person I called.
That fall, we moved down to Philly, and after the chaos of moving in and meeting the strangers we'd be living with for the next two semesters, I went to his room. His room mate was out, and we were alone. We sprawled out, exhausted, on the floor and smiled at each other. There was a short, comfortable silence. Then:
"There's something I've wanted to tell you for a long time," he said. "I'm gay. You're the first person I've told."
How special that was to me. How precious that confidence. In that one moment we were closer than we had ever been before. Through the hugs and the grins and the wet eyes, we settled into our new life.
Art school is (in the words of a psychiatrist that provided services for our school and Thomas Jefferson University), as far as workload is concerned, just as difficult as med school. Freshman year had a tremendous dropout rate, mostly for those kids foolish enough to think art school was some sort of free ride to employment. Cid and I stuck it out, found dives we liked, regularly ate together, scandalized the younger students with our dirty dancing (because we could), took crazy 3 in the morning walks to the Rodin museum, to the waterfront, to the Schuykill. We were overconfident and irresponsible. We reveled in our immortality.
And we were closer friends than ever. One afternoon as we ate a quick lunch at Sababba, over our falafel, out of the blue, he said "You know, if I ever were to get married, it would have to be you. I can't seem to get along with anyone else quite as well. Nothing seems to bother you." Those words again. At that point, I actually believed them myself. We sardonically laughed over the impossibility of it all.
During our second year, we found an apartment together with a few other students, and Cid settled down to study architecture, and I decided to go for illustration, as the anatomy and drawing courses were superior to the painting department's. It was a hard year. Cid was unhappy and disillusioned with the architecture department, and after some painful soul searching, and difficult interactions with his family, dropped it and entered the dance department. He found his bliss.
The third year, we rented an apartment together. I earned a job a Borders, and started working full time along with my classes. Cid had gone through a few relationships during the second year but nothing like what happened this year. This year it was F. Wonderful, funny, sardonic, he came comfortably into our lives. Before half a year was over, Cid had moved in with him. I missed not having him around. Suddenly, I was truly single. My friend had found someone who could give what I could not.
Since I could not afford the apartment on my own, and it wasn't fair to ask Cid to keep paying for rent, he helped me find a place with a friend of his for the remainder of the year. I saw less and less of Cid, but the intense workload of school and my job distracted me. I dated, halfheartedly at first, then fell for *gasp* my philosophy professor. I moved in with him not long after that. So went the third year.
And with the fourth year, so went the philosophy professor. It was a mutual, friendly parting. We both new the spark was out. I moved back with Cid's (now mine as well) friend. By graduation, I'd found a small garrett room with a tiny bath that would be home for the next couple of years.
The year of graduation was a tremendous year of change. I dated a fellow I'd known throughout the 4 years of school and who I'd always had a crush on. It ended in a spectacular tempest of insanity...he discovered he was schizophrenic. I now saw Cid rarely. I alternately made excuses (he was in a relationship now that had to take precedence over friendship), and blamed myself (what I had done to drive him away)?
A year after graduation, I was living with my future Hub about a block away from Cid and F. We saw them occasionally together, and I eventually found myself hanging more with F than with Cid. We talked over how distant we had become, and F confided that Cid was having problems with depression, and had suggested more than once to him to talk to me.
One day, I got a call from an old classmate from high school, whom I hadn't seen since a jaunt to NYC a few years back to see "The Phantom of the Opera" with a posse that included Cid. I was delighted to hear her voice. At first. I still can't remember how the call proceeded, just that I was surpised to discover she was in Philly, and even more surprised that she was over at Cid and F's place. Then she said:
"Cid is dead."
I can't even remember if these were her exact words. I can't remember if she told me over the phone that he had killed himself. There is a space of time that collapsed in on itself. One moment I was in my kitchen, the breath knocked out of me, the next I was in his apartment, staring at the sunlight on the walls, surrounded by people I hadn't seen in years, yet it seemed no time had passed. And there was F. by himself. We looked at the beam where F had found Cid hanging. We waited.
It was his father who brought Cid back. His father who few of us had seen, and all of us blamed. He walked in and through the sunlight to a table where he placed a small white box.
Cid.
After that there is nothing in my memory of leaving accept hugging F. There is only the memory of that white box, and the silence, and the smell of the sunlight that fell on it all.
I wish that was it. I wish that I could have a simple clear rage towards Cid for what he did. But I can't, because somewhere along the way, I discovered that Cid had been abusing F. Badly. And that he had tried and tried to get help, and nothing did help. He never talked to me. I never knew. I don't even know if I would have been able to help. I know (or I like to believe) that he thought he was protecting F. Unconsciously or consciously, he was punishing us all. Was he protecting me with his silence? Or was he in so much enraged pain he just gave up?
He left us in despair and anger and frustration. It's been over 10 years, and the pain is dull now, but still with me. Sometimes I dream he is still alive. Once I was positive I saw him walking down the street in Philly, and it took me a moment to remember. It took me a while to get over that moment.
What would I say to him if we met again? What will I say when I see my friends at our reunion who were there in that room, waiting together? Will I cry, as I want to cry now, for all we lost? For all I lost. Time. Opportunity. Life. Here is my daughter, Cid. Where are you? What do you think of her? Don't you see how miraculous she is? How miraculous it all is?
Why didn't you see?
How I wish you could.
But now that it is only a few months away, I feel like I want to go. I'm curious. How strange will it be to talk with people I only remember through the haze of 20 years and the warped viewpoint of an adolescent? I know that in some ways, I am not the same person I was. Will I regress? Will it be just as impossible to associate with these people as it used to be?
I know it won't, mainly because I've grown up enough to have a sense of humor about myself.
I now know what my shit is, so I'm not fooled when others try to hoist their shit on me.
But there is one other thing.
Cid won't be there.
Cid the artist, the actor, the architect, the potter, the dancer. Cid of the amazing black curls that at one point fell to his waist. Cid who could do anything he put his mind to.
We went through high school together, with a small group of artistically inclined outcasts. Within this group I was considered to be "off center". In a good way, I was assured. I was laid back, I knew how to listen. Nothing ever seemed to get on my nerves (how little we all knew). Cid was the one everyone wanted to be close to. He was funny and engaging, loyal, sympathetic, and gentle. He worked hard to help support his mother and sisters, who had all been abandoned by their father.
I wish I remembered more of that time...bits and pieces come back. Speeding down a back country road in his Mom's car; going into Boston for First Night and drinking an illegal bottle of Jim Beam to keep warm; going into high end boutiques on Newbury Street with an attitude, and Cid egging me on to try on a $300 dollar rubber dress (which looked fierce, though it felt like I was wearing an inner tube); eating lunches on the catwalk of the auditorium; watching him from the pit as he danced through various high school musicals; going together to the senior prom for the simple reason that we weren't dating, and knew each other well enough to know that we would never date. We just wanted to have fun. We could relax and be ourselves together.
After we graduated, my little group of pals gave me a bon voyage party of Chinese takeout and fuzzy navals on the floor of Cid's bedroom. I'd saved the money I'd earned working throughout junior high and high school, and since I didn't know at that point what the next step was (my grades were mediocre enough to keep me from any real effort towards college) I went to Europe.
For five months, I travelled around with my Eurail and Youth Hostel passes, and somewhere in the middle of the Mediteranean, discovered that I wanted to study art.
Cid had taken a year for himself as well, so when we hooked up again, he told me about the University he was going to. Then he told me to apply. Didn't just tell me...hounded me. When I was accepted, he was the first person I called.
That fall, we moved down to Philly, and after the chaos of moving in and meeting the strangers we'd be living with for the next two semesters, I went to his room. His room mate was out, and we were alone. We sprawled out, exhausted, on the floor and smiled at each other. There was a short, comfortable silence. Then:
"There's something I've wanted to tell you for a long time," he said. "I'm gay. You're the first person I've told."
How special that was to me. How precious that confidence. In that one moment we were closer than we had ever been before. Through the hugs and the grins and the wet eyes, we settled into our new life.
Art school is (in the words of a psychiatrist that provided services for our school and Thomas Jefferson University), as far as workload is concerned, just as difficult as med school. Freshman year had a tremendous dropout rate, mostly for those kids foolish enough to think art school was some sort of free ride to employment. Cid and I stuck it out, found dives we liked, regularly ate together, scandalized the younger students with our dirty dancing (because we could), took crazy 3 in the morning walks to the Rodin museum, to the waterfront, to the Schuykill. We were overconfident and irresponsible. We reveled in our immortality.
And we were closer friends than ever. One afternoon as we ate a quick lunch at Sababba, over our falafel, out of the blue, he said "You know, if I ever were to get married, it would have to be you. I can't seem to get along with anyone else quite as well. Nothing seems to bother you." Those words again. At that point, I actually believed them myself. We sardonically laughed over the impossibility of it all.
During our second year, we found an apartment together with a few other students, and Cid settled down to study architecture, and I decided to go for illustration, as the anatomy and drawing courses were superior to the painting department's. It was a hard year. Cid was unhappy and disillusioned with the architecture department, and after some painful soul searching, and difficult interactions with his family, dropped it and entered the dance department. He found his bliss.
The third year, we rented an apartment together. I earned a job a Borders, and started working full time along with my classes. Cid had gone through a few relationships during the second year but nothing like what happened this year. This year it was F. Wonderful, funny, sardonic, he came comfortably into our lives. Before half a year was over, Cid had moved in with him. I missed not having him around. Suddenly, I was truly single. My friend had found someone who could give what I could not.
Since I could not afford the apartment on my own, and it wasn't fair to ask Cid to keep paying for rent, he helped me find a place with a friend of his for the remainder of the year. I saw less and less of Cid, but the intense workload of school and my job distracted me. I dated, halfheartedly at first, then fell for *gasp* my philosophy professor. I moved in with him not long after that. So went the third year.
And with the fourth year, so went the philosophy professor. It was a mutual, friendly parting. We both new the spark was out. I moved back with Cid's (now mine as well) friend. By graduation, I'd found a small garrett room with a tiny bath that would be home for the next couple of years.
The year of graduation was a tremendous year of change. I dated a fellow I'd known throughout the 4 years of school and who I'd always had a crush on. It ended in a spectacular tempest of insanity...he discovered he was schizophrenic. I now saw Cid rarely. I alternately made excuses (he was in a relationship now that had to take precedence over friendship), and blamed myself (what I had done to drive him away)?
A year after graduation, I was living with my future Hub about a block away from Cid and F. We saw them occasionally together, and I eventually found myself hanging more with F than with Cid. We talked over how distant we had become, and F confided that Cid was having problems with depression, and had suggested more than once to him to talk to me.
One day, I got a call from an old classmate from high school, whom I hadn't seen since a jaunt to NYC a few years back to see "The Phantom of the Opera" with a posse that included Cid. I was delighted to hear her voice. At first. I still can't remember how the call proceeded, just that I was surpised to discover she was in Philly, and even more surprised that she was over at Cid and F's place. Then she said:
"Cid is dead."
I can't even remember if these were her exact words. I can't remember if she told me over the phone that he had killed himself. There is a space of time that collapsed in on itself. One moment I was in my kitchen, the breath knocked out of me, the next I was in his apartment, staring at the sunlight on the walls, surrounded by people I hadn't seen in years, yet it seemed no time had passed. And there was F. by himself. We looked at the beam where F had found Cid hanging. We waited.
It was his father who brought Cid back. His father who few of us had seen, and all of us blamed. He walked in and through the sunlight to a table where he placed a small white box.
Cid.
After that there is nothing in my memory of leaving accept hugging F. There is only the memory of that white box, and the silence, and the smell of the sunlight that fell on it all.
I wish that was it. I wish that I could have a simple clear rage towards Cid for what he did. But I can't, because somewhere along the way, I discovered that Cid had been abusing F. Badly. And that he had tried and tried to get help, and nothing did help. He never talked to me. I never knew. I don't even know if I would have been able to help. I know (or I like to believe) that he thought he was protecting F. Unconsciously or consciously, he was punishing us all. Was he protecting me with his silence? Or was he in so much enraged pain he just gave up?
He left us in despair and anger and frustration. It's been over 10 years, and the pain is dull now, but still with me. Sometimes I dream he is still alive. Once I was positive I saw him walking down the street in Philly, and it took me a moment to remember. It took me a while to get over that moment.
What would I say to him if we met again? What will I say when I see my friends at our reunion who were there in that room, waiting together? Will I cry, as I want to cry now, for all we lost? For all I lost. Time. Opportunity. Life. Here is my daughter, Cid. Where are you? What do you think of her? Don't you see how miraculous she is? How miraculous it all is?
Why didn't you see?
How I wish you could.
Comments
I'm so sorry.
Thanks for sharing Cid with such honesty and care. It sounds like he'll always be a part of you ... even at that 20th reunion.
Sending hugs your way.