Living in shades of grey

He is wearing an oversized suit and is air strumming an invisible banjo. He smiles at me while grooving to the music. “Soup” is his name. He tips his grey tweed hat and joins us for a scotch. Peanut shells crush under his feet as he skips over. We are living in shades of grey. The serrated melody of Johnny Cash flows through this cavern. Logic has vanished and the furies have been released. Dropped into a bizarre monochromatic plot, life is too surreal to imitate reality tonight.

Listening to Soup is calming and endearing. He tells us of war and how he traveled “47 miles through barbed wire with a cobra snake as a necktie.” Disjointed his tale jumps from Vietnam to Vegas. Where he didn’t move because he “doesn’t gamble, just liquid gambling with his liver”. For a moment I am able to forget; I am able to enjoy the absurdity of the situation. Surely this day is not real. Rum takes the edge off, and I am vaguely aware of how out of character liquid comfort is for me.

…But I remember everything. What have I become, my sweetest friend. Everyone I know goes away in the end…

I try to understand, but waves of anger rip through me. I try to communicate, but assumptions and fear cut through my heart with the consideration of rusted razors. I am wandering through a grainy film strip. A graphic novel of Sin City caliber plays out around me. Tonight there are no colours, just emotions and choices.

A friendship ended tonight. In passing moments I am curiously detached. I am unable to grasp her assumptions and fears because she will not express them. I cannot understand her judgment because I only know my reality. I’m too furious to care.

…Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. Beneath this stains of time the feelings disappear. You are someone else. I am still right here…

She struggles with discriminating notions, and could not accept my job, nor recognize it as work. In her mind, I am someone else. In her mind I am still dating the Artist, I am twenty, and I am innocent. She has never been open to accept or see how I have changed over the years.

I became a threat.

She is scared, and unwilling to convey her insecurities. Unfounded fear has brought her to this point, and it hurts. It hurts that in a day I came to embody everything she is afraid of. It hurts that instead of talking and embracing my friendship, she turned on me as the enemy.

Defensive and vicious she attacked. Malicious and with a total lack of respect she dumped every weakness and crack in her marriage on me. She refused to speak to me. Instead of dealing with it like an adult, she had her cousin call me. “Where can we drop off your stuff? You’re not welcome at her house”. Her cousin reiterated my suspicions. I’m a whore, a threat, and an immoral stripper not worthy of a simple conversation. Livid, I screamed in frustration.

Memories of high school frustrations and two-faced cowards fuel my rage. Crude adjectives and explicit vehemence flow into the phone. I want to talk to her. I don’t want to hear third-party opinions and insults. How dare she not even have the guts to pick up the damn phone and talk to me? How dare she be so self-righteous and indignant? How dare she be so selfish in her tantrum? Stupid Bitch.

That’s one way to end a friendship.

They dropped my stuff at the bar, with not even enough regard to wait for me to make sure it was safe. They left everything I own with the bartender after I explicitly asked them not to. It could have been destroyed, it could have been stolen. But I’m just a worthless stripper, what the fuck do they care.

All I did was accept her offer to stay with them and visit.
All I did was go to work.

She is isolating and sabotaging herself. The only real threat is her defensive resentment. She runs away instead of talking. She buries her emotions instead of expressing. For what? He loves her. He adores his wife, and has never done anything to jeopardize that. I see how he looks at her. I see his eyes when he talks of her. I know men, I watch them. I respect him.

He is the one that has to reconcile the aftermath of this temper tantrum. I do not envy it, and I do wonder if I would have the determination to bother. I don’t know that I would, I’m not married. That is a commitment that I admire but do not understand.

I’m not a threat. I never was. I am just a woman that has known this couple for over six years. I am just a friend that has listened to her doubts, her emotions, and her dreams. I am just a woman that has offered the gift of friendship, and put in the time and effort over the years to maintain and strengthen that bond.

All around me are familiar faces Worn out places worn out faces Bright and early for the daily races going nowhere going nowhere…

It hurts. But I cannot apologize for who I am. I am sorry she never knew me. It has been a beautiful couple of days, and I cherish the moments. It hurts to be thrown away again but I will not regret nor poison these memories. The ocean is eternally calming and I reluctantly allow the universe to pacify my fire. There is nothing I can do, like the water I am learning to flow with the current. Exquisite beauty is frayed at the seams and the events are ludicrous and nonsensical.

The moonlight dances across the waves. The wind caresses and stings. It’s late and the shades of grey embrace my soul. Illusions have been shattered, but I know who I am. I know I did nothing wrong, and I know my friends love and accept me. I am not alone, and I am confident on my path. I walk away from this with the knowledge that I did all I could. Someday she may need me. Sadly I will not be there for someone who was so eager to condemn, and disdain me.

I will never be there to listen to her cry.


... The tears are filling up their glasses no expression no expression Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow no tomorrow no tomorrow And I find it kind of funny I find it kind of sad the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had I find it hard to tell you I find it hard to take With people running circles it’s a very very… mad world... mad world…