Empty

"Oh, I'll empty you
I'll empty you
As empty as a boy can be
As empty
As a boy can be…"
--Robert Smith of The Cure, "Icing Sugar"

I'm empty. I am a hollow man with an empty core that can never be filled, and that emptiness is the driving force behind my self-destructive behaviors. I try to fill it with drugs or alcohol or meaningless pleasures of the flesh that I regret even as I'm in the midst of doing them. When I was a child and adolescent, I was so full of my dreams and fantasies of the person I wanted to be and the things I wanted to do. Yet as I grow older, those dreams die and fade away, leaving a nothingness in their place.

Sometimes I can sense that the emptiness is going to become unbearable and overpower me. It is like an alien will, pushing me to act out in some way, to make some desperate attempt to relieve the pressure by any means necessary and at any cost. Last Friday was such a time.

First a little background: I went through narcotics detox again last February, and I had managed to stay clean for several months. My dealer's source dried up, and so she was no longer able to supply me with any Vicodins, which was a good thing. A few weeks ago she called me and told me that she’d been injured at work, so she had some pills available. Still I was able to resist. I couldn't bring myself to close that door permanently, but I put her off. I'd been going back to the gym and was starting to see some real results. In spite of this progress, a month or two ago, my alcoholism took off once more. It got to the point where I couldn't stop myself from getting drunk almost every night. I would have a panic attack at the thought of staying sober. It started to interfere with my workout schedule, and I was consuming amazing amounts of alcohol, even on nights when I had to go to work the next day.

So last Friday I could feel the emptiness gnawing away at me and my intense need pressing down on me like a weight. I made a last-ditch effort to derail the self-destructive behaviors I knew were coming by calling my friend Jonathan and asking him if he wanted to do something, anything, that night. Jonathan has a wife and two young children, so obviously most of his free time is devoted to them, particularly since he dotes on his two sons and is always trying to make "quality time" (to use a dreadful '80s yuppie term) for them. They were all planning to go to the "tot Shabbat" services at temple, and so he was unavailable to spend time with me. I'm a neurotic, and like most neurotics, I look to others to take responsibility for me. However, I have the presence of mind not to feel that my friend somehow let me down. He has a life and a family to take care of. He's not my personal emotional tampon to come rushing in at my beck and call.

My original plan was to go home, get drunk and go to bed early in the hopes that tomorrow would be a better day. Would've been a good plan, too, (relatively speaking) if I had stuck to it. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the way through my first 40 ouncer of malt liquor, I decided "fuck it!" I was gonna call my dealer and get me some pills! She wasn't home, so I drove down to where she works. While I wasn't dead drunk, the only thing I'm truly ashamed about is the fact that I drove even when I really wasn't fit to do so. She received me warmly, eager for the money I would give her, and gave me the keys to her apartment. I went there and retrieved the Vicodins and then went back to pick her up after she got off work. I agreed to take her to the grocery store since she doesn't drive, and as she did her shopping, I formulated the next stage of my plan. I was gonna get me a man!

By the time I dropped her off, I had basically sobered up from the alcohol, and the narcotics were pulsing through my brain. I decided to go to West Hollywood to "hook up." My intent was to cruise Numbers, a bar and restaurant that has a reputation as being a place where gigolos and tricks get together. I hoped I could trade what remained of my youth and looks for a nice older man who would treat me well and satisfy my need for physical contact. By the time I'd arrived, though, Numbers had closed, so I was forced to go elsewhere. I went to a couple of other places on the Boulevard, I don’t really remember which ones, and was about to give up and simply go to a bathhouse or sex club. Finally, as the night was winding down and the bars were about to close, I caught the eye of this incredibly handsome man. He had an adorable face and a fabulous body. We kept looking at each other, and I finally got over my worries that he was only looking at me 'cuz I kept looking at him. And his return glances only meant, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

I sat next to him and started to chat him up. Blah, blah, blah. Then we started to make out. The bartenders announce last call, and we polished off our drinks. He asked me if I had a car, and I told him I could take him home. We kept making out on the walk to the parking structure and in the car when we got there. He hinted that he might be willing to go to my place to continue our snogging and "do what comes naturally." Unfortunately, my apartment is still a complete train wreck, certain to make any sane man run screaming, so that simply wasn’t an option. As we were driving away, he asked me if my place was unavailable because I had a lover. I said, "Oh God, no." I then explained that I wouldn't be out cruising if I was partnered. He directed me to his place, and I parked on the street. I asked him if we could continue there, and he confessed that he had a lover. He told me "not to judge," which I guess was in response to my previous comments. I told him that whatever arrangement he and his lover had was between the two of them. I was just disappointed that we couldn’t go to his place. He mentioned that I was "exactly his lover’s type." I don't know if he was suggesting a three-way, which I would have pounced on, but he didn't really pursue that any further; so I didn't either. We started making out again. He took off his shirt, and I started kissing his amazing chest. He claimed that I was really hot and was making him crazy. I suggested that we go to a bathhouse, much cheaper than a hotel room, and we could make love in the privacy of one of the rooms. He said he was an interior designer and that he had a client meeting the next day. We made out some more until he finally said that he had to go before he did something imprudent, namely take me up on my offer and be a wreck for his meeting. I gave him my phone number and e-mail (of course), and he left.

The weirdest part about my encounter with this guy is that I think the lover he mentioned was a masseur I've seen before and even stolen pills from! I thought I heard him mention the masseur's name in passing, a name that is somewhat unusual. (Keep in mind that I was pretty fucked-up and unfocused at the time.) And the place where I dropped him off was quite close to the masseur’s apartment building. If it's true, this amazing coincidence really freaks me out. I mean I live in a city of over three and a half million people. What are the odds that I would randomly hook up with the lover of another guy I've randomly encountered? You have to remember that for a guy "who holds down a job and dresses" himself, I'm pretty majorly disturbed psychologically. Extreme coincidences feed into my paranoid-schizophrenic fear of solipsism.

So anyway, after this guy leaves, I'm all blue-balled and unsatisfied in my quest for a sexual encounter. Since the bars were all closed, I then decided that it was time to visit a bathhouse. I drove home and parked my car in my garage. I went upstairs and drank a little more, then got ready to go out again. I live up the road from a bathhouse, and so I simply walked down there. I'll spare you the details of my strolling around in a towel like a schmuck, stoned and a little drunk. After quite awhile, I hooked up with this blonde fellow. To cut a long story short, we went to his room and indulged ourselves in carnal pleasures. There was a lot of tenderness and holding, which is what I really wanted. I did top him, though. I was too far gone for my equipment to be of any real use, so I faked an orgasm to get out of it as gracefully as possible. We talked for a little while, and he told me that he'd recently moved to Los Angeles from Texas and that he's also recently "come out" as a full-time homosexual. He said he wanted to "date me." By this time (it was about 6 a.m.) I was feeling fucked-up, exhausted and drained. I put him off because I didn't know where my head was at. He was a nice guy, though. He was kind and didn't try to make me do anything I didn't want to do. I said, for now, I'd rather try being friends and see where that went. I gave him my phone number and e-mail, and he gave me his phone number and, for some inexplicable reason, his address.

We parted company, and I went home to catch a few hours sleep before I had to go to my retail job on Saturday. I went to work feeling like crap, as you can imagine. My original plan was to "party" with the first half of the Vicodins and then "use" the others to motivate myself to clean, do laundry, etc. However, by noon I was jonesing so bad that I shut down the store for half an hour so that I could go home and get my pills. I'd finished them off by the end of the day, so I went home thoroughly discouraged and disgusted. I crashed into bed, slept all night and ended up sleeping all day Sunday, while blowing off church and the gym.

Today I feel as if the world is coming to an end. My mind is such a maelstrom, I can barely catch a thought. Because I broke my vow to God to forego narcotics for at least six months, I feel that I must be punished. Even though I was completely messed up, I still followed the practices of safe sex in my dalliance. However, with my OCD acting as the glue holding this mad theory together, I'm convinced that the vengeance of the Lord at my weakness will result in my being positive. These are the insane demons I'm grappling with as I attempt to convince those around me that the façade of my normal life is real. I'm just so tired.