And Thusly It Began.

It was some year at some point in history which was apparently unremarkable, at least to me. Among the details that I have forgotten I do recall that it was Valentine’s day and I was in L.A. I had just returned to the Chateau Marmont after having had a less than innocent dinner with my friend Elke, whose husband was conveniently out of town, filming. Her affections had booked a later flight. We had successfully defeated two bottles of champagne at dinner and then, at Elke’s urging, stumbled around Griffith Park in the dark hills overlooking the city.

After that we pinballed down Mulholland, all fuckiddy up. Her husband had called at dinner and she lied when he asked what she was doing. From that point on the evening seemed to be searching for some unspoken permission. We drove around Hollywood for a while before returning to Marmont. I pointed out that champagne spelled backward is “infidelity.” She laughed.

When she dropped me off she wrestled briefly with her own moral compass. The outcome of that bout remained unclear for years to follow. As she pulled away she said, “Write me a letter.” “Write me a letter?” A curious request I thought. In the lobby of the hotel I ran into Wallace Shawn. We chatted for a few minutes about Telluride, the film festival and Vanya on 42nd Street; an adaptation of Checkov that seemed rather relevant at the time. “All we can do is live.” I said. Then I returned to my room.

Sitting on the bed I noted that the mini bar seemed to be calling to me. “Come closer. I promise I won’t tell the front desk.” I plugged my ears with beeswax and instantly lashed myself to the radiator so as not to go mad. Alcohol has long been my Siren’s song and the evening had already presented rocky shores and turbulent seas. I noted too that the hospitality basket contained condoms, a shoe horn and cashews, a premium nut that I had always associated with intimacy.

On the desk there was a folder that contained letterhead and envelopes. “Write me a letter.” I whispered. And thusly, it began.

Let us not speak of this exchange. Let us instead deny that it ever took place, for it seems so vulgar, like racism, that you and I should engage in such discourse about something of which we know so little. Something of which we address more from a sense of loss than a sense of fulfillment. Our arrogance.Our hubris. We speak of the old days and the good times as if they had truly existed. We fill our heads with false memories and we speak their names, their dear names as if they were deity. Which perhaps they are or perhaps they will be, if they ever truly existed. If any of it ever truly existed. Ever, truly.

When you asked if I would write you I wished for all the world that you had never spoken. That your lips had never parted or that your tongue had ever moved. I wished that you had been struck dumb or that your words, your stupid poisoned words had been lost to the air to offend someone else on the other side of the universe, but your callousness spilled out across the void and struck my ears and within an instant, those days, which had been so long gone. Those days which I had struggled to lay to rest, came charging back and tore open the wounds of the past.