Fear is, Reality is:

I have spent the first three of the last five days without sleep, cursing, pacing, throwing my body, paint and shit against the walls in the back of my studio. I’ve been fucked up ever since I spent that weekend with Trulie, I don’t know what to think, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to be. I’m fucked and I knew I’d be fucked if I allowed this woman under my skin. I am helpless. I am lost. I can’t find my way into that zone that allows the healing to start.

So today, Leroy calls me out of my workshop studio, to help him consult a client. Socially Leroy’s more fucked than me. He named his shop after his condition, Empath, Leroy really feels what other people are projecting emotionally, he needs constant protection. His dog Seka, is the best bitch for that, but for human exchanges it’s Madeleine. Madeleine is the customer, but she’s out looking for places for Leroy to vacation. Well, Don El is a nice young man, is sitting there trying to talk with Leroy in regards to the business venture his committed to. And of course Leroy, who gets it, is whirling around in an emotional maze and he calls me. Right! “So umm, you know I got this hook up fo’ a Ice Cream truck that been converted, so that we can deliver and sell green groceries and some pre-pared food in the hood ‘n’ shit you know. Only I don’t know what to call it ‘n’ shit. I ain’t never had a legit job or nothing, but I can hustle see. So, I’m talking with my money man and he says I should talk to Leroy here about a logo and letterhead, website and all that kind of shit. ‘Cuz he be coming square and I ain’t got a lot o money ‘n’ shit you know.” 

I agree to study his plan and strategy and to get back to him by the end of the week. By then Madeleine will be back and that’ll help a lot. Don El says “Yeah! Sho, Bet!” and leaves. 

How can I help him? I have to get my shit in order. I have to go to this ceremony for the children at the Academy tomorrow afternoon. Otherwise I have to wait days or weeks for my check. It ain’t a big check, I can live without it, but I need to pay Madeleine and Leroy, I need a rhythm to my life, some order and discipline, and I really need to close this chapter of life. I can’t say I forgot, I made the invitations. And I just need to be able to function in public without the drugs or supervision. So, this is how it starts. Greet someone, listen to them and do my best to help them achieve their goal. This is a nice package. But his budget for communication assets, barely covers the cost of print for a month. This thing is for a year. I’ll try to figure it out. I need to see if I can salvage the canvases in that room. They are supposed be going on somebody’s wall as art. Get to popping man. 

“You’re an odd man Periwinkle Bubbles”. I shuttered with anticipation, touching myself the way I wished to be touched. He turned his head slightly to the left, raised the clove cigarette to his lips inhaled deeply, the flare crackled in the dim quiet night. Outside it was raining, inside was a private resort. “I am aren’t I.” Periwinkle Bubbles exhaled sweet spicy smoke with his words. Drifting off in a soft but passionate diatribe. “It’s my form of being a dominant. It’s a challenge in this social construct, you understand.”  He raised his head and looked into my eyes. “How does one effectively dominant someone that has been perceived as a member of a group that, traditionally identifies themselves by the historical fact that she comes from a people oppressed so long, that their only option is to rebel? Yet, their rebellion has generally been seen as self and culturally destructive…” Periwinkle’s eyes narrowed to slits, the cigarette smoke screened his face even more. “…Your joy, your pleasure, your freedom is my goal.” He no longer studied me through those little smiling eyes. He made love to me and I felt it like a hug. Then just like that, he becomes the dirty old sod, torturing me with good music, great coffee and visions of hope

-“For you…Trulie…I’d like to learn some suspension technique, like Shibari, It’s beautiful, like Macrame or something. You know. But this Sadomasochistic shit disturbs me.” I reach out and take his hand and turn it over, caressing the calluses on his fingertips and where his palms instinctively grips his tools. I held his hand a long while, until he began to twitch and fidget. I noticed the sun rising and asked him to take me for a walk in the garden. I walked slowly a few paces ahead, because I know he loves to look at me. It took effort, but I didn’t shy, when his eyes caught mine. I allowed myself to accept the woman he saw. I felt I kind of owe him that. In true form, he didn’t make me hold my composure like that too long, but instead waved a finger to make me continue following the meandering path of soft fragrant thymes, mints and mosses beneath my feet. When we’d completed the circuit the sun was completely over the horizon and he sort of glowed in the misty rain and early light

Then out of nowhere he says, “You know, it’s impossible to smoke after fucking in a bouncy castle. A fifth of Tom Traubert, two pounds of lard and we were ready. Or so we thought. An hour or fifteen minutes later, sliding out the hatch and onto the cheap green indoor outdoor carpet like a pair of breech seals.

I never did that shit, but I met a stripper once that said was her fantasy. I think about sitting at a bar, beer in hand, when some loud ass talks about having done it and I smile.