Death of a Ladies Man
part of something i wrote on the train
Leonard Cohen drenched the first month of our relationship. Sam would writhe on the floor of his tiny, dirty apartment, singing to me how he’d howl at the moon like a dog in heat. He did wear the chain. I tugged on it when I wanted him to kiss me.
The first time I entered his apartment I was sick for hours beforehand. I was sure he’d try to sleep with me or ask me to touch him. Instead, he apologized for the state of it. Magazines and books littered the floor. The walls were bare except for a poster of Johnny Got His Gun and a small wooden cross.
I sat on the edge of his bed. “Are you Catholic?” I asked.
He stretched his arms above his head like a muscled brown cat. I felt, in that moment, with the weak sunlight catching his hair, that he was the most beautiful thing alive. “I’m something,” he said, unsmiling.
“It was perfect,” I told my psychiatrist that week. “He is perfect. He didn’t make me do anything. We kissed a little, that’s all.”
She suggested after every appointment that I might benefit from also seeing a therapist. I only wanted for somebody to comprehend just how much I adored this man. Even now, the world refuses to understand.
“I’m worried,” she said, her thin brown hair hanging nicely around her shoulders. “that you’ve severed your connections to the world once again. And I know you haven’t refilled your medication. I spoke to your pharmacist.”
“I’ve never been more connected to the world,” I told her. “I don’t even need to create art. Simply existing in his presence is fulfilling. Just be happy for me. I’m not an idiot. I don’t even believe in love. I’m not delusional in thinking he’ll marry me. But be happy for me.”
She smiled politely. “If that’s what you need from me, I’m happy for you.” Before I left her office she reminded me to pick up my medication.
Sam’s favorite album at the time was Death of a Ladies Man. He sang along softly as he stroked my hair. I wasn’t fluent in English, I’d make him translate the meandering sentences into French. He did so happily.
"How come you’re so perfect in English?” I asked one night as he peeled a potato. He was making a budget raclette, though it was only September.
He asked me to turn up the stereo. “My father was Canadian,” he said. “I’m only French by circumstance.”
“I’m sad I didn’t know that sooner.”
He shrugged. “You can’t know everything about a person. Not even yourself.”