The Next Decade (Cliff Notes Version)

After getting back from Portland, I had less than two weeks to find a place to live. Not too far from my current place, I found a condo with room for rent on Kings Road in West Hollywood where I stayed at one address or another for the next four years. I continued to work in graphic arts and even tried a coporate position for a year. But with the stress it caused, I wasn't keeping my meds down and was choose health or job. Health won out.

I never forgot about Randy and it wasn't that I didn't want to visit, but I was going to wait for the fifth anniversary (2001)and head up to visit and find his sister.

Summer 2000 I returned to Florida defeated and made plans and arrangements to move back to LA one year later when two weeks before my departure my mom has a stroke.

September 11, 2001. Flying out of the question. I loved Randy, but he'd still be there for the ten year anniversary. (But I will confess to my parents giving me a few days off from nursing mom and I did go to NYC mid-November and see the aftermath. Unreal.)

(Yes, I know, ten years seems like a long time and it is. And I can't do the six or seven things. Perhaps too anal retentive (ya think?). But as aside from seeing Randy, my main purpose was to locate his sister. And they say the the decade anniversary of an event is usually when the people involved return to the scene of the crime. (so to speak.) So I figured I'd wait till then. The actual date of his death fell on a Sunday and I'm sure they'd attend a service and pay their respects. (or was hoping really hard.)

January 2002, Mom dies. Tried moving back to Los Angeles in September, didn't work out returned home and have lived here ever since. Just me and dad with the two cats.

October 2006 (see? Cliff notes) and I've got my reservations and I'm all packed and at the airport flying Southwest on a Saturday evening returning early Monday morning so I'm basically in the city for maybe day and a half with most eaten up by sleep or travel.

So at the airport the plane is about fifteen minutes late. No biggie. Then come to find out it's got a cracked windshield and their bringing in another plane. Now we're going to be 45 minutes late. Still plenty of time to make my connection in Albuqurque. New plane arrives and we are seated. Me next to window with vacant seat and then some guy who PULLS OUT A BIBLE and starts reading. Waiting, waiting.

Announcement: The captain's headset microphone isn't working and we've got to have it fixed.

Okay, still dealing. Take a Xanax. Guy's still reading his Bible. Glad he's calm.

Thirty minutes later it's fixed. We pull back from the gate and a cheer goes up from the passengers. We get about a hundred yards and completely STOP. The captain's voice comes on.

"Folks, you're not going to believe this....."

"The wing ice indicators aren't working and we can't fly without them."

(I did mention that we were flying to NEW MEXICO in FALL?)

So at this point I'm up and out of my seat the minute we pull into the gate and the door opens. Asking the flight attendant if I can de-plane. They were glad to get rid of the freaking out fag I'm sure, so up the gangway I went and to the ticket counter where I heard them making arrangements for a THIRD plane to come in as this one wasn't going anywhere and to start deplaning the passengers. Got me a full refund believe it or not from Southwest immediately.

Do you think "someone" was telling me NOT to come to Portland?

So I get in my car driving back from the airport just crying my eyes out because after so many years of waiting and talking about this day, it didn't happen.

I had let Randy down.

But as days passed, I realized that I wasn't supposed to come then. What I wanted wouldn't have happened. She wouldn't have been there. And the third plane was five and a half hours late so I would've gotten to bed at four am having to be up at seven.

And I know this for a fact because his sister told me herself when we spoke on the phone in February of this year.

Not only Cliff Notes, but Cliff Hanger...(dum, dum, dummmmmmmmm.)

Fall Sucks

So Summer came and went and Randy and I stayed in communication with phone calls. Not every night or even every few days, but at least once a week, maybe twice.

No way was I going to pressure him about anything. He needed however much time he needed to get settled and figure out his next direction. Besides, I was working and, as it turns out, starting to look for a new apartment as Suzanne had accepted a position with another company and was relocating to San Francisco. We had to be out of the complex by the end of October.

So September rolls into the first of October and Randy and I had been making plans for me to come up and visit around the middle of the month for a few days. The first of hopefully many. But during a conversation probably the end of the first week, Randy told me that he hadn't been feeling well and that perhaps it'd be best to postpone the trip until he was more suited for company.

I totally agreed and we decided that around Thanksgiving and we'd do the "Norman Rockwell", perhaps with his sister's family. As one of the things that RDP hated more than anything was for someone to make a fuss over him if he wasn't up to snuff. (He had a cold soon after we started dating and I did the vaporizer, soup, pedialite route and drove him crazy.) Jokingly I said, "well, it's for the better as I'd probably mother you to death."

As was our way, rather than say "Good-bye" we exchanged "I love yous" and hung up.

About a week later, I come bouncing the house from work and there's a message on my voice mail with a number I don't recognize, but an area code I do. T'was sitting there trying to figure it out when suddenly a cold chill corsed through my body.

It was Randy's sister, which meant...

He was gone.

My worst fear was confirmed when I returned the call. He'd passed the night before in the hospital where he'd been for the whole week. Sis by his side the entire time. Except for about thirty minutes when she taken a short break for a change of clothes or something to eat and that's when HE chose to leave.

Which is the way he wanted it and got. RDP was stubborn as a mule.

Cremation and services were being arranged. Now this was Wednesday and the Memorial was on Saturday so I immediately got on the phone with my father and told him best I could, that Randy had died and I was going to Portland. It wasn't a cheap weekend with tickets, hotel and such and God Bless 'em, he might not have understood, but he didn't say a word about it ever.

So flew up to Portland, met at the airport, taken to sis' house where I finally met the parents and once his dad figured out exactly what kind of "special friend" I was of Randy's, it was about time to leave. We stopped by his apartment for a few minutes and it was such a sweet little place. He'd done such a nice job fixing it up. Green walls with the white couches and the violin on the wall over them. Got the Warner Brothers Jacket (and a BIG bottle of Valium in the bathroom) and then a lonely night in a strange hotel room crying my eyes out.

Picked up the next morning and taken to Trinity Episcopal Church (lovely old stone gothic kinda place) where we gathered in the smaller of the two chapels. Don't remember a damn thing except the minister was a woman. I didn't stop sobbing the entire time. And I mean bite your fist, headache, burning tears of true misery and despair.

Then we went outside to the small Memorial Garden where some of his ashes were to be interred. A handful of dirt and that was it. (Oh and did I mention the crying?) I found myself on the way back to the airport hotel with the only two other friends of Randy's that bothered to come up for the service. Los Angeles isn't known for creating true friendships.

I'd never-ever see his face again, hear his voice or his laugh as long as I drew a breath. Part of me was missing. A great big hole. It hurt.

Unfortunately, due to a combination of things from shock to having to move at the end of the month, I lost all contact information with Randy's sister almost immediately after getting home.

The Kicker? I still went up the weekend of October 18th, but not for pleasure.

That Halloween would've been our two year anniversary of losing my heart to him.

I dislike October intensely.

Not enough to poison the candy we pass out mind you, but still the whole month just bites the big one.

Second Honeymoon

Well, lemme tell ya that the next few months were sheer heaven. Randy and I had what I'd been knowing in my heart we were destined to have. But I guess over the course of the seven months we were apart, we both did some maturing, realization and most importantly, compromise. As possessive as I wanted to be, us living together and spending a whole hell of a lot more time together, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Randy needed the independence and solitutde he'd had most of his life, in otherwords, space. And I was okay with that (well, maybe not as much then as now) because it made the moments we were together that much more special. How could I not give him what he asked?

"...And grateful I would be
If just one damn man would share the need,
To be alone with me."

The months passed and Randy's 34th birthday rolled around. February already? I had been working at Warner Brothers in the creative department that was designing the promotional and tie-in items for the big new movie Space Jam with Michael Jordan. And as such, we were allowed access to the lot's Commissary and of course Souvenir Shop. (It was pretty cool to see the cast of Friends milling about or sitting next to the cast of ER (minus George Clooney) or seeing Ah-nald. But we weren't allowed to approach them for that could result in immediate dismissal. It wasn't the old studio system let me tell you, not like when they'd filmed 1954's A Star is Born with Judy Garland there). But anyway, before getting sidetracked, the point was that I bought this really great suede jacket for RDP as his present.

And he was going to need it as the previous month, Randy had informed me that he'd decided at about mid-May to move back up to Portland to be near his family as Los Angeles has the ability to suck the life out of almost everyone eventually. Remembering how chilly it was standing in the garage smoking my cigarettes, I knew that he'd need something warm to protect him from the elements for the coming Fall. We went out to the movies that night and he wore it in the theatre while we sat in the dark holding hands.

Besides, I'd be coming up for visits once he settled in .

February rolls into March and my 34th arrives. Roommate Suzzane and a few friends and Randy gather at our place for an evening of pretty much nothing. In the middle of the celebration, Randy pulls me over to one corner and pulls out this little box and hands it to me. Inside was a gold bracelet. As he took it and placed around my wrist he looked into my eyes:

"This is for the ring I never got you."

Oh Sweet Jesus! Even now I can't help but tear up from remembering those words.

(For those of you who joined in late - Early on, Randy tried to give me ring. I told him, no commitment, no ring. Scroll down and start with the first post.)

I really can't describe the feeling of having everything you've ever wished for come true in an instant, except to say I hope whoever is reading these words gets to experience what I did that night in their lifetime - finding and becoming one with your soulmate. (And yes, it's the one I'm wearing in my Monroe's a'musing photo.)

So Winter turned to Spring and began turning into Summer (but in California it's so hard to tell) and the date of Randy's departure drew more near. And yet, I wasn't concerned nor worried as it was really a short plane ride up the coast and they left all the time so I'd be up and we'd at least as some semblence of normalcy, even if just for a few days at a time.

The one hard thing to do though was not be there the day his sister and family came down to gather his pack him up and leave. Randy asked this of me, and as difficult a request it was to honor, I understood why, and did. It would've been too hard on both of us, though I would've put on the bravest face until the end. But, again, I couldn't say no.

After all, I'd let him go once and he came back, so we were meant to be. No doubt in my mind there. So, our last night together I honestly don't remember, but Kylie Minoque expresses it so well in a song from her Light Years album (yes, Kylie - so shoot me)).

"Here we are in the dead of night,

Will you keep me warm and hold me tight.

All we have is until the dawn,

Let the night be long and ease the dawn.

I love you more than you'll ever know,

It hurts to see you go.

So Darling sing, me a lullaby of

Bittersweet goodbye.

Don't think about the future now.

These few hours, Let the nighttime envelop us.

Take us under Bewitching spell, bewitching spell.

Here we are in the dead of night,

Won't see you past the morning light

So Darling sing, me a lullaby of

Bittersweet goodbye.

May we meet on our way Home."

How prophetic that last line turned out to be.