Tim's Tales from the Road

Rebound

To everyone who has "been there"
And to those who've kept me company
"Through there."


Copyright 1999 Timothy Anderson

Sometimes life has a way of making sense of the strangest events. Drop kicking stubborn understanding out of the fog of disillusionment. This is the story of one of those moments. Captured first by pen, written under a midnight shadow and from the middle of a ghetto, it was meant to be a one on one conversation. A simple, run of the mill letter composed to a special friend. When the letter was received, the friend insisted that I post it and so here it is.

Both times I've come home to vacancy, like a thief in the night or one of those Oklahoma Super Cell, T boned thunderstorms that roar in, right smack in the middle of a perfectly fine day. Unaware, I never saw the sky darken, never saw the sky lit up with lightning, and never felt what hit me. Before I knew it, assumed futures were blown clear into the next lifetime and I was left behind, surveying the destruction, shell shocked, and bewildered.

I figure the perspective has to be different on the other side of that line, the viewpoint from the one pulling the disappearing act, but I don't rightly know for sure. I hope, God, I hope, I am never on either side of the equation again. It's the least flattering kind of perspective to study the frailty of humanity from and it's hell on all that "I love you, you love me" Barney bullshit.

Last year I wrote about a western Kansas storeowner running circles around herself out on the windblown Kansas plains. At the time, I had no idea how wise that woman was when, for some reason she chose to share with me the fragile nature of love. The words still echo in that December coldness when the pretty woman said hesitantly, "You know, I never thought that the person that I loved the most, I would someday hate the most."

Referring to her now ex-husband, she retold the horrendous actions on both sides that signaled the end of their relationship. Back then as I listened quietly to her, an impartial observer, I didn't know that her words would come back to me again and again over the next year.

And how is it that such a thing could happen? The grueling abrasions of heart and soul signal the end of intense, positive, emotions. Love replaced with something dark and retaliatory.

Never mind the clean-up effort as emotional bonds, wounded trust, and the surrounding relationships from neighboring counties are declared a federal disaster area. Everyone emerges from the bomb shelter and asks what will you do now?

And in response to their cue, I asked myself what do I do now?

When the smoke clears and the ruins are examined then what? Is that what is called rebounding? Filling the hole in your heart that someone you trusted rode roughshod through? Filling the emptiness, the pain, and the isolation that free falls into loneliness with what? What are the options available for tending to that most tender part of us? Many fill the vacancy of their raw feelings with the closest emotion available. Hatred. Fear. Anger. Lust.

Or worse, nothing.

I have buried a lot of folks in my life. Too damn many in the last two years alone. Part of the grieving process is widely acknowledged to fall into about half a dozen specific stages. The experts say the responses mirror those felt by people who are losing ground against a terminal illness, losing a loved one, or facing the loss of a relationship. The steps in the dance include bouts of denial, depression, anger, bargaining, retaliation, and if the heart is open, acceptance. Facing loss, straight on, is the only path I know.

Five of the steps I visited. A couple of stages were so much fun I couldn't get enough of 'em on the first go round, so I went back for seconds. And thirds. Loss is an "all you can eat" buffet and I had my fill. Retaliation looked nice from a distance, but every time I checked revenge out over near the 'just deserts' counter, it looked too damn rich for me. I passed.

Even now the words are difficult to find, much less comprehend, when I face yet another disclosure informing friends that Dallas and I are no longer together. I have just as many questions as they do and very few answers.

So this is me, single in 1999, and the options for a gay man such as myself are staggering. Very few of the opportunities really reflect who I am and I usually end up referring back to the "good neighbor test". Would I be embarrassed to tell my neighbors about this? These are the neighbors who "know" and who have witnessed me damn near catch our forest on fire, just about poison them when I tried to make them breakfast and who now appreciate the beauty of pink plastic flamingos in a way that they never did before they knew me. They are warm and open people and we not only share a mountain top community together but we share our triumphs and failures. Usually when I consider the whole single scene and my participation in it, I reconsider.

There are far better options to pursue as I contemplate "what do I do now?" They also pass the good neighbor test. I'd rather just hang with friends or enjoy the company of myself. Better that than playing tag with a turnstile world that would just as soon wind you up like some malfunctioning hot walker. One professor said recently, "Tim, it looks like you are gonna have to ride through the desert first before you find water." The funny thing about that desert ride that I was on, is that I wasn't alone. A lot of folks rode beside me and carried an awful lot of water for me.

I don't figure now's a good time to attempt to chart new courses into the unfamiliar. So, I haven't been running anywhere but towards the company of solid, committed friends. The sort of hands that drive 1400 miles in a weekend to make sure some glue remains to hold things together. Forget about pursuing the typical 'same old, same old' routines.

The pounding music and the flashing strobes in the ghettoes distance, always beckoning, promising relief in our community: Our version of church, where so many men and women worship the body and forget about the soul. I didn't want my experience to mirror that of the other gay men that I have read about or seen. The cliched Andrew Hollerman hero's: bitter, rode hard and put away wet. I've witnessed them from the smoky view of too many last calls where desperation is the only hymn the faceless are capable of singing at two a.m. on a Sunday morning as they rebound for the thousandth time going for just one more shot. A last stand directed towards some elusive and ever moving target.

"Rebounding" they call it. Going for the extra point, the conversion, the easy score. Guess that's the perspective from the world of athletics. Rebounding seems to look pretty effortless from that viewpoint. Jump up with the ball and put her home. Capitalize on every missed opportunity, right? Is that what we mean? A hook shot laid up sweet and on target, and then, on to the next score? So I contemplate the word and let the thoughts roam.

It is August and I find myself once again at the beach. At 3 am. I write all of this while overlooking the blackest water and the word 'rebounding' keeps sleep somewhere off towards another horizon. A vantage point, that I can not see from here. For the northwest, the evening is exceptional. Warm and soft, the air is still without even a chill to disturb the senses. The lights from the city on this side of the bay rise and cast fingers out over the water. As I put ink trails on unlined paper and then consuming that, on an old paper grocery sack, the music from the vehicles of people who know the meaning of summer drift across the boat ramp towards my truck. I write, thinking about the part of my heart that disappeared in a mindless moment that never stops swirling.

A young couple parks next to me. She is black and he is a young, white, bald man. They are all about light, illuminating the darkness with spirit, smile and some kind of innocence that I haven't seen for a while. Flashing their calling card of youth and inexperience, they fall in harmony all over the energy of a summer night.

"Can we park here," she asks, "without getting towed?"

I stop writing and she approaches dragging the muscular man with her and he smiles a grin that lights up the night, establishing for my benefit that he really doesn't mind being dragged around, at least not by her. He looks spellbound happy and dreaming with his eyes, deer in the headlights, satiated.

"Is it safe?" she continues, and I shrug. She forgets the reason for approaching me and wonders what I am doing. Seeing a card, translating the handwriting and looking first at the pen and paper, then at her watch, she finally brings her eyes back to mine.

"Why you sitting here writing a letter at three a.m.?" She pauses and then continuing she pulls her young escort close. They are both leaning in the truck window. "Either someone just dumped your ass or you in love." And she drags the word "love" out to make sure that I know that she knows the meaning of the word. They both stand there under the orange halo of the street lamp with a purple hue cast over them by the neon seafood restaurant sign across the street. The lighting makes everything seem soft like the gently lapping waves across the drive.

"So you been left or you been found?" she demands with a genuine smile.

I can't help but return the emotion.

"Ah… well, I guess I qualify for both…" I finally manage.

She laughs and turns back to her man.

"See? That's why he's down here at dawn!" Looking back at me again she says, "How much longer you gonna be here? You'll watch my car, right? We're just gonna go out and walk on the pier. Come get me if I gets my baby in trouble here. And if you don't…" She shakes her head, grinning… "I will be very angry! You hear what I'm saying?"

By this time, I've decided that her car is my car, and that there isn't anything anyone's going to do to it. I nod and they both smile.

As the couple strolls off towards the pier, slinking away into the neon, the young man calls back to me, loudly and jovially, "Remember, you better watch her car, 'cause you don't want to make her pissed!"

She pinches him, making him jump. Then they disappear into the shadows between here and the fishing pier. I can't help but think, "No, sir. I definitely don't want to be on her bad side."

Back in the warm summer's night silence I think about the gregarious couple and wonder what they know of "rebounding." I am sure that whatever their take on the subject, it would be interesting.

Somehow sleep doesn't seem to be a priority tonight and the restlessness is only temporarily captivated by the motion of the waves. I get out of the truck and bring the sack I am writing this on out to the fishing pier where the young couple is embracing among the late night Vietnamese fishermen. Bright lights shine into the black water and everyone seems to be drawn towards the reflecting salt water far below. A line of silhouetted figures lean against the wooden rail, all of them bent over the railing, staring down at whatever their fishing lights capture. Poles rest against the railing, empty buckets at their feet, and in the early morning hush everything is about awaiting the tug of those lines and some kind of bounty. Everyone is present and accounted for, resting in that anticipation. Except for the couple. They are locked in each other's arms waiting on other more alluring rewards.

Occasionally, I see one elderly woman, drowning in a large straw hat, turn from what she hopes might lie on her line beneath the pier and study the oblivious couple instead. She is frail and small, appearing to be called to the water on this warm night, alone. Her face buried in the shadows seems deeply weathered and as she watches the couple compelled by their endless embrace, I wonder what might be running through her mind. Is she considering the shallow depths far below her, quiet under those creosote planks, or does she wish to be like the couple, young and in love?

Would that topic, the silent reminder of the harmonies of two spirits seem impractical to her? What would she think of the word, "rebound," especially as the breeze touches her face and the first of the morning's seagull stir and take to flight? And what might she tell me as I think about that simple word?

I have no idea if I fit the definition as I walk slowly back to my truck while the eastern sky turns rose and Mount Rainier begins to shimmer off in the distance, again assaulted from her sleep by first light.

As I pull away and head towards home, I am glad I resisted the temptation to turn towards the mountains, for if I'd gone in that direction, I doubt I would have been content to stop and watch the rising sun from the summit of some still snow-covered mountain pass. I would have wanted to drive and drive and follow the progress of day until I'd seen the angle of the sun from every western landscape. A feat that even from the temptation of sunrise, I know I could never achieve. And as I thought about missing that opportunity, I figured that maybe I never will know if I fall into the definition of a man on the rebound. I also wondered what comfort might the answer to such a question bring? As unsettling as the world around me seems, I feel settled. As shock falls on acquaintances when "the news" is disclosed, I feel calm. And as crazy as everything is, for the first time in a long time life actually makes sense.

The following afternoon, after my stint of regional truck driving was finished, I found myself with time on my hands. I know few people here in Seattle, and judging by the weather, and the surprising appearance of the sun, I knew that finding any of the handful of folks that I do know to hang out with on such short notice would be a crapshoot. Instead, I ran some necessary errands. Pursuing the grisly practical chore of shopping for deodorant, shampoo, the typical necessary "guy stuff" and getting a needed haircut, I stayed busy rather than considering any further thoughts about rebounding.

Saving the worse proposition, the haircut, for last, I made my way grudgingly towards the gay ghetto. Yeah, I know, I should give a fuck, but concerned friends banned me from the mall and a repeat of last fall's worst haircut of my life. I agreed to the rule. I was tired of wearing a hat. It was that bad. To this day, anyone with scissors and a razor makes me nervous.

The barbershop I patronize now isn't like the barbershops back home in Pend Oreille County. The place exploits the trends that change like the seasons and the walls are plastered with explicit, strangely colored posters of various functions, bands, and liberal charitable causes. The eyes are overwhelmed everywhere they pause. Giant mirrors showcase the entire space and the only way to avoid eye contact with someone is to study the floor. The shop emotes sexuality, women cruise women and the men cruise the men and sometimes it's pretty darn hard to tell whom is zooming in on whom. Skin mags piled on the waiting benches haphazardly target both lesbians and gay men. The glossy pictures in those rags portray realities that I can't relate to, although I recognize the perfect bodies, perfect lives, and perfect hair as defining the definition of what empowers a large percentage of the community.

As I study these surroundings, what I see manifested in real time all around me in the space of a barbershop resembles little that brings people closer together. Rather the message magnifies this "don't touch me, I'm fragile masquerading as tough, or glamorous or impeccable" attitude. I once again wonder if I really needed a haircut that bad to deal with this assault. Reminded of the friend who once commented on the perfect reputation portrayed by the host of the Dr Laura Talk Show, she asked, "Who among us is perfect enough to call her?" Yet the purpose of the Dr Laura program is to help people who can't find their way and hopefully secondarily generate ratings in the process.

Caught by the irony that flows under the surface of everything we strive for in life, even the barbershop fits into the scheme of that. Since when, is going to get a necessary service like a hair cut such an event? If I were perfect, I wouldn't need the damn clipping in the first place. I try to reassure myself that I really do belong in this place. I fail miserably.

Looking around me, many of the clients appear to have gotten their hair cut just last week. Some of the patrons look as if they've dressed up, gotten a new haircut yesterday just so they'd be presentable for the occasion of being seen getting their haircut here today. Everything is about standing out and all I want to do is blend.

Wondering if I am the last remaining person from the pre, Generation X, Stone Age, I make eye contact with a nice lesbian. She has shorter hair than I and is wearing a very handsome flannel shirt with the sleeves missing and the tattoos flowing. Nibbling on some tofu, she is reading a PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) brochure. The topic of the brochure addresses the evil ag-meat producer business and their depletion of the world's resources and their cruelty to animals. I am wearing my "Bullriders Only, Cowboy Up" Buckle portraying a bull rider getting his balls busted on an unbroken Bovine. She studies it, then looks at me sarcastically and says, "Love the buckle."

I suppose that if a misogynist Penthouse or Hustler landed in the joint, there would be riots if not angry protests with feminists singing really bad folk music and leading candle lit marchers in a chorus of "We will overcome" outside. Next, I bravely imagine myself marching down to the corner drug store and buying a Penthouse. Returning to the barbershop I would read it in front of the short-haired lesbian just to piss her off. I'd reset the clock on gender studies.

Suddenly, my thoughts of saving face are derailed by an old remixed Indigo Girls song playing in the shop. The Lesbian and I both realize at the same time that both of us are humming along to the same tune. I smile and shrug and she tries to be tough and ignore me but she can't and eventually she acknowledges me and says, "They were so great in their time. The Indigo Girls were pioneers."

Their time? What about Janis Ian? Joni Mitchell? Hey, they aren't THAT old. Are they? Lets see when I was in college the first time I heard them and they were just starting to get popular and that was, oh let me see… 14 years ago! Remembering that the Indigo Girls were invited to perform at Jimmy Carter's Birthday party in Georgia this fall, I smile a weak smile back at the lesbian with the shorter hair than I. I once again wonder if she would save my place on the bench while I go to get that Penthouse.

Life is nothing short of unsettling sometimes.

The lesbian's name is called and she steps forward to her date with destiny, sheep sheers and a man who I do not believe has any patch of skin that has not been altered by tribal markings in some fashion. Techno music thumps my heart into a rhythm that I haven't felt since my parents found my porno collection when I was 18. The hip beat replaces the old standby Waylen and Willy and the boys fare that I am used to. I wonder, prompted by the Indigo Girls slam, if my clothes are old enough to qualify me as a walking museum to retro.

The place runs on a first come, first serve basis but it seems that those clients who get their hair cut at the barbershop every week are moved up in the standings to the head of the line. Looking around the waiting area, it seems that that includes just about everyone but me. This particular barbershop is a world unto itself where there are no appointments, just status. It is also all about the luck of the draw. Just like bull riding. Draw your ride. Draw your barber. The bull will knock you off just as swiftly as the barber whacking your hair onto the floor will. The bull is pretty much silent but deadly while the barber is loud and deadly, talking about who is in and who is out and who is Out that should have come out a long time ago.

As I look at the barbers, I am reminded of the lotto. "You can't win if you don't play." A troubling thought races through my mind just after my name is called and a hip lesbian looks at me, surprised, as I stand. I panic. I wonder if sometimes when you play, your reward is that you are sentenced to pay and pay and pay.

She seems like a nice enough lady or girl or ms., in spite of the tastefully loud piercings and close encounters of an undefined kind looking hair that she sports. Putting the curtain of death over my nervous body and the cloth napkin of doom around my neck, she menacingly holds the razors with one hand and me in her chair with the other.

"What do you want me to do with you today?" she asks.

I tell her, "Short on top, on the sides and some length in the back." Listening to myself speak, its sounds like I am asking my grandmother for a cookie out of the cookie jar, 'pretty please with suga' on top', and hoping that when Grandma gets it for me, that she won't discover the other missing twelve cookies. Why am I begging the barber for what she does to MY hair? I am the customer.

The Barber asks, "You want a Mullet?"

"What is a mullet? It sounds like a drink." I ask.

And she says it's something that boys from the Midwest still wear and that in the eighties people who listened to Duran Duran wore. She asks me if I just moved to Seattle from the Midwest.

I say no.

She asks me if I am moving to the Midwest.

I say no again.

"Well if you aren't going to the Midwest and you are staying here, I will not give you a mullet." She starts cutting. Snip. Snip. Cold. Efficient. Snip. She resumes talking, "They used to call them bi-levels and I haven't done one since '90. These days only boys who listen to Garth have them."

There is a long pregnant pause.

"Who do you listen to?" she asks.

"Garth," I say and her only response is a disturbed "Oh, now that makes perfect sense."

She asks me again what I want. I am still contemplating whether I should tell her about Garth's new rock sound to redeem myself. Instead all I say is just make me look dateable.

"That's better," she says and the now the clippers are set loose. Hair falls in huge clumps and she is humming to herself which I can just barely hear above the Techno. Although my glasses are somewhere on the counter, by the amount of hair that seems to be falling around me, I know that whatever happens, I am assured that I am on a one-way ride to looking like a lesbian. And, a handsome one at that.

"So you're single?" she asks and I say yes. Adding that I am actually just recently single for the first time in ten years. She wants to know what kind of girls I like. And because I am in a gay neighborhood and the salon is full of gays, I ask her to repeat the question, and so she again asks me what kind of girls I like, and I realize that no, I did not misunderstand her. How could she not know or assume that I was part of the family? Am I that out of fashion?

Silent, I think for a moment, and then I say quietly. "uh… I am not attracted to women. I like men."

The clipping stops. She steps back, disarms the clippers, turns them off and says in a very loud voice just as the drums cease and all that I can hear are itsy bitsy little musical synthesizer notes, "Oh. My. God. Did you just, like, come OUT in my chair???"

The place goes silent. All of the other stations' hair stylists are stone cold quiet and clients, employees and even God are all hushed, staring at me. I didn't know what to say. Part of me wanted to jump up and tell them that I was ok with it if they were. Instead I just sat there and started sweating as the embarrassment overwhelmed me.

Then she leaned down, whispering in my ear, "You are the first to ever slip by me. I thought you were just a lost redneck. I come from a family of rednecks. My dad was raised in Butte, Montana. He used to ride with the Hell's Angels."

She resumes working but people in the shop aren't talking anymore and the house music seems to have evolved to quiet jazz. Clipping close to my ears without saying anything, she seems inspired. Occasionally stepping back to look at her work in the mirror, she adds an afterthought, as if she is entertaining a foreigner, "Welcome to my chair."

I couldn't help but wonder at her choice of words. Weren't those particular words once spoken by a Florida executioner as he strapped some prisoner into 'Old Sparky', the states notorious electric chair?

"So you wanna get a date or get lucky?" she asks, her motions a blur.

"I'd like a date," I say.

"How long you been out of that ten year relationship?"

"Five months," I answer.

"Nope. Wrong Again. You will not be doing any dating." The place is still silent and everyone seems to be listening to our conversation. She returns to using the scissors again and the snips seem to be getting violent. "Trust me I know about this. I have tried myself but it always ends up bad. Very, very, bad I am telling you. You can't date anyone for another month. You gotta wait. At least six months! That's the rule. For some reason that's the amount of time you need until your first date. It is always at least six months. No less. Date before then and, oh my God! All you will attract are psychos. Freaks. The weird of the weird. Don't know why, maybe they can smell it on you but that's how it always works. I have stories to tell you. I wouldn't listen to the rule. I thought I knew better and now…look, just trust me. Don't do it. I wouldn't believe it myself so I tried. Holy shit. Never again."

The population of the shop hangs on every word. Magazines are set aside. The chorus of snips is the only sound. She is getting louder and more emotional the longer she rails about the evils of premature dating. I debate whether I should ask her what her definition of "rebounding" is, but I come to my senses and don't.

Thankfully it wasn't too long before she was done.

"I gave you a good one," she says. Putting my glasses on, about twenty-five people watch me for my reaction.

Looking in the mirror I am amazed. She's transformed me into the best damn looking lesbian I have ever seen. I did look good! I smiled at her in the mirror.

"You see?" she says, "Looks good, huh? No mullet either. But," she winks, "you can still listen to Garth. And now, you look good enough to date! But don't. Only four more weeks! Then you can!"

Paying her, I tipped her well. The experience of her advice regarding love was priceless. Walking outside, I felt everyone's eyes following me. Fumbling for my truck keys, I stopped in the doorway. The truck was parked right outside the door and the big windows of the barbershop faced my rig. Finally I found the right key and I was in the process of unlocking the door when there was a tap on my shoulder.

Turning to face the source of the tap, I realized that a gorgeous man followed me out of the barbershop. Trying to figure out what I'd forgotten or left in the shop, I looked at him in confusion. Instead, he handed me his card. He, younger than I, was very handsome, cute, or whatever they call perfect people with perfect bodies these days. I had a hard time holding eye contact with him.

I took the card with a questioning look.

He smiled. My heart skipped a beat. "Turn it over," he said, "Read what I wrote on the back."

I turned the card over and it simply said, "Call me. In four weeks."

Looking back up at him, he was still smiling.

"Thanks" I said and then he went back inside. Standing on the sidewalk frozen by what had just happened I looked back in the barbershop window. All of the barbers were standing at their stations, looking out at me. She was standing there too, hands at her hips holding her scissors, a comb, and the clippers of death, watching me.

I held up the card and mouthed "four weeks" while I flashed her four fingers. Laughing, she gave me a thumbs-up and as I turned around and got in my truck, I realized that almost everyone in the place was also smiling.

For me.

A final author's note: In May of this year, two weeks before finals, I received an urgent call from our accountant urging me to get home to the ranch as soon as possible. I arrived there the next day and discovered Dallas with another man that had sent both he and I unsolicited naked pictures over the Internet. Dallas was not expecting me to arrive and through the other man, I discovered that they were involved. It was the most painful moment of my life.