Lucien received what he came to the bar to receive: an escape. He received the perfect portions of being fucked both by recklessness and by a man he had never seen before in his entire life, a man he trusted nonetheless because he was only using him to gain what he had lost, and through all of this apparent gratification, Lucien has never felt more sordid than he does in this moment, striding across the sidewalk in a tube as cold as it was when he strode towards the bar to pick up this impenetrable layer of guilt, striding towards his apartment and towards his friend who had no fucking idea that he was wasting an existence as precious as Lucien Carr's, an existence that could have sparked other people's existence, and though that is not his duty, it is his skill set, but it is being wasted on booze and a carefree attitude in a world where it is imperative that he cares at least a little bit, because sooner or later he'll be dead, but with the state of things, it will be the former, and I will have no idea what the hell happened to my spunky roommate who used to believe in the world.
It is fairly evident that Lucien stores just enough faith in me that he will feel remorse for what he has done and what he will do, but that's still not enough faith for him to persuade himself against his current route of regrettable actions that will inevitably tear my life apart and send me back to the basement of Jack and Edie's house where I was lonelier than the majority of the world on Valentine's Day. I can't return to that, not when every day with Lucien is Valentine's Day, not when I've glimpsed too much life to cage myself in a dark box of writing articles for phonies, not when I've seen a lot yet not an adequate amount to survive on my own, not when Lucien Carr is the only person I have to keep me afloat, a buoy chained to the sand by force in the middle of a hurricane but making the best out of his innate abilities, though it appears that his innate abilities either aren't suitable enough or are withering away.
At least he has the decency to show up at the apartment again to put my worries to rest, though he'll probably introduce even more worries to me than before, but with my determination to fix him, I'll do my best to resolve those, too. However, as Lucien ascends the steps to the apartment and I rush out to greet him after being absent for the night, I realize that fixing him may be close to impossible.
He does not speak immediately, instead grasping the opportunity to search my face for the intentions of kicking him out of my life, intentions that are as absent as he was last night, but he is melancholy nevertheless, melancholy enough to ask a question burdened by twenty-four years of living with a writer's' soul "If I am a master of spontaneous beginnings, and you are a master of tragic endings, then where is the middle to preserve our relationship? There isn't enough time for us." The canoe named Lucien's voice snaps, and he plunges into the icy river of tears, thrashing within them in the hopes of embracing me, but when he finally does, it is not reassuring or warm or tender. It is as cold as his heart, the whimpering child of hypothermia from one's own indomitable distress, and I almost comment on it, then stopping myself because I know that Lucien is aware of it too and hates it just the same as I do.
I have forgotten how silence tastes on the cliff of my tongue, how unsettling it is to scream with no sound, but we are not speaking when we write, and that is why we always get away with documenting our opinions, because even with cloth over our mouths we continue to flex our fingers towards the freedom of mind.
I'm lost now, because my computer is nowhere to be seen, and it is my sole duty to speak with my mouth, not my fingers. I have no fucking idea how to proceed, but Lucien is still waiting as if I do. I'm not as strong as he thinks I am. I'm just a stupid writer from Paterson, New Jersey who happened to stumble upon something worthwhile. That's it, or at least that should be it, because now I'm wrapped in this pit of dread and miscommunication, and there is never any clarity in a writer's mind, especially when they are together.
Maybe I should've known that this wouldn't work out, and maybe I should've tried harder, but I'm nevertheless suspended in Lucien's demeaning gaze as he expects an answer that I cannot give, and I swear to God that I'm done, because in the pitfalls of my insufferable youth I made the mistake of falling in love with someone who would leave me, and I can't fucking handle that.
I am not a man to cower in the face of death, but that is not what this is. This is much more than death to a single person, much more than a shadowed funeral limited by the paltry size of my bank account. This is the death of Lucien Carr, a brilliant writer and an extraordinary human, yes, but it is also the death of the ideas that could've been sprung from his head, the death of new movements and new freedom from the archaic rhyme and meter, the death of people he could've inspired to create their own amazing futures, people like me.
I may be able to document some of those ideas in writing or in speeches I'm too nervous to deliver in order to inspire blossoming writers as a result, but it will feel as plastic as a biography written by someone who lives in a different century than the subject. With Lucien, he was so far above me that I felt as detached as that biography writer, no matter how fervidly Lucien attempted to draw me into his ramblings. I simply cannot understand what his mind possesses, because everyone experiences things differently, but philosophers present their concepts as facts engraved on the tombstone of morality, unwavering in the inky silhouettes of a cultural deviant, and it's like we followers are tripping behind. I can do so no longer, and I must provide Lucien with an answer, however crappy it is.
"Maybe the richest things are only rich because of their density." I'm full of complete and utter bullshit, but it is complete and utter bullshit that Lucien needs, so long as he can derive his own significance from it, and by the partially consoled expression on Lucien's tear-stained face, I can decipher that my plan was successful, and he has derived the right amount of significance for him to be halfway calmed.
On the contrary, Lucien presents the opposite effect than I would've predicted, diving back into his self-deprecation. "I ruined any riches we could've shared."
Mending Lucien will be a great task, but if I am able to achieve it, the outcome will be the most splendid thing I will ever witness. I will have maintained the splendor of my best friend for as long as he needs me to maintain it, and if I am prosperous enough, then in time he will be able to maintain it for himself, but all of this is wishful thinking, daydreaming to construct a shield against the wreck shivering before me because I don't want to believe that this is what my companion has come to.
It is time to stride past all of my doubts about helping him, time to poke out my elbows to jab my opposers with a weapon created solely by me as a part of me, and if I require more pretentious bullshit to assist my crumbling friend, so be it.
Slipping a hand around my companion's cheek like a mother helping their child through panic, I drill my chocolate eyes right into Lucien's ocean blues, dulled by a storm overhead and dulling still, and forcefully state, "You are flavored by the forbidden, but do not think for one moment that it makes you any less beautiful."
Too often I have witnessed in the media writers who have cascaded into darkness because the qualities of which they were once proud have become the bane of their existence due to other people's faulty judgments of them, and I'm not about to allow Lucien to suffer the same fate. Yes, he may be destined for a fate just as agonizing, but he is too magnificent to fall towards the deceiving pillows of the mainstream, no matter how easy it may seem to do so.
In order to release some of the tension of being told for once that he shouldn't go and fucking die, Lucien laughs nervously. "Next you're going to say you support meter."
"Truth is, Lucien, that we do sometimes live in a world of meter, and that meter is how much we can endure as mundane human beings, so if I were to apply that to our relationship, then we would be an absolutely shitty poem."
All of the sudden, he gets defensive, a portion of the dullness in his ocean eyes parting for a raging storm. "Fuck meter in any shape. We're beautiful."
"No, we're disintegrating."
I know Lucien has been endeavoring to hide this fact, but it's no secret that we're falling apart faster than we fell together. Lucien is spiraling into a nostalgic oblivion, and he will not grant me access into a spot of aiding him. No relationship has lasted forever in truth, at least no relationship built on feeling rather than choice, but Lucien is a man of impulse, not of devotion to chains cloaked by the misnomer of commitment, so no matter how arduous it is to accept that we're deteriorating, the day will come when that is the only option.
However, as I said, Lucien is a man of impulse, not of choice, except for when his choice is to hold onto things irrationally, things that are eroding based on his previous choices, and it may be that he loves me and wants to love me forever, but I can detect that he loves his imminent death more and is only selfish for drawing me in when all I'll ever be right now is his buoy when he promised to be mine.
"Don't say that," he snaps almost instantly after I admit that maybe we aren't as perfect as we had once thought, as sturdy.
"You're the one who preaches never to avoid the truth of life, but I suppose you're only strong when it suits you." I shrug sarcastically, pinning my eyes to anywhere besides my companion because I, too, am terrified.
"Allen," Lucien huffs. then inadvertently playing host to the abrupt onset of his tears' second round in the fighting arena.
"You know, when you want to be remembered, you can always soak your life in misery and send it to a writer to deal with, and that's what I did, but you can't even handle your own life, so how is this supposed to operate?"
"It isn't," Lucien confesses, finally admitting that not everything will work out in his favor. "I shouldn't even be here."
The point is that Lucien should be here, that Lucien is engaging in acts that oppose that goal, including agreeing with the notion that he needs to desert me physically when he's already deserted me emotionally, but it is my duty to bring him back from both, though I can't do squat with someone else's mind. "I know I can't stop you from doing reckless things with the promising ordeal that is your life, but if you leave, just remember that you will be missed dearly."
What a cliche thing to say to someone who deflects the cliche. I should be ashamed of myself, but there's no time for that when Lucien could be staying or leaving at any moment now, so I only anticipate the despair flowing from Lucien's berry lips.
"People will only miss me when I'm dead, so now what? Do I wait?" He tosses his hands into the November air, a landscape of enchanting decay, incapable of finding rest in this debate. "This shouldn't be the only reason to live. I don't owe anyone anything. They won't know they'll miss me until they're lowering my coffin into the ground."
"Actually, my intentions are to keep you out of a grave."
Lucien's foot is digested by the brick of the front porch steps as he grows increasingly impatient, barking, "Yeah, well you're doing a great fucking job with that."
I smother my voice in quietness, now bashful and somewhat guilty for things I should not be guilty for, and all I can mutter through my self-pity and lack of security is, "I'm doing my best."
And that is when Lucien crumbles completely, with tears leaping from the seas in emotional suicide, with metaphorically outstretched hands guarding the remnants of his tattered soul, with only the humility of poverty after his boastful pretentiousness was stripped from him by demons he can't even see, and he is finally bare. "Oh God, I know." He hurls his arms around my shoulders, shaking and weeping, no longer the brave man I thought he was, but perhaps stoicism is not the only bravery there is. Perhaps the most important kind of bravery is pretending to be all right until you feel that you are courageous enough to confide in someone, and I cannot express how fucking proud I am of Lucien Carr, after all of the hell he's trudged through.
Lucien Carr is every fiber of my being. He is the cells that compose my body like he composes his words to allure me into his stunning captivity. He is the moon that chases the sun, the moon that chases me, the resilience reflected from its ashen surface as it shields its face in the night because it knows when to speak and when to observe. He is every tiptoe of wings upon a gentle soul's limbs, every star lapsing in and out of view to enhance his magnificence when it arrives. He cannot leave me because of demons infiltrating a place that is not theirs.
"What did you do while you were out?" As Lucien's friend, it is my job to know why he decided it was a smart idea to venture outside of the apartment late at night to throw his life away, primarily now that I've tasked myself with going above and beyond my call so that I can ensure his safety henceforth, as much as Lucien protests.
My companion's shoulders tense, which is a weakness to Lucien know that I've decrypted this, as he's all about secrecy, and he's never one to act like he's anything less than a hero. "We're not talking about this, Allen."
"Yes, we are. Do you want to die?"
Lucien contemplates this for longer than he should, warning me that the answer to my rhetorical question is actually yes, and with his next sentence, it is confirmed. "You know what? That would genuinely be nice. We humans are all destined for death, and one day all humans will be dead concurrently, but I can't deal with another sixty years of hell. Bring me to a fucking grave, Ginsy."
I retract my body from our embrace, just as Lucien will one day retract from living judging from the gravity of his prior words, but I can't fucking deal with that. I can't deal with the volatile alternation of our intentions, alternations that leave us both confused as to what we want for our lives, so I might as well clear things up with a bit of lip. "Can you please stop with this existential crisis propaganda? It's barely true. We of the human race will live forever, or until our planet is exterminated by some sort of pandemic disease or the sun's supernova or an invasive species, but we will not be exterminated by daily life and daily death. Please get this through your dense head, for I'm beginning to worry that this nihilism bullshit is a sign that life is only pointless because your illusions of grandeur have convinced you that your death is the world's death, not because humanity as a whole is a waste of time, and you may be right, Lucien, but I just don't want you to be devoured by a fascination with death so potent that it will surely lead to your own death sooner than you should pass as a young man capable of so much more than the bitterness plaguing your life right now."
This silences my companion, which is both a helpful and a frustrating phenomenon, because on one hand, I want him to be slapped in the face by the weight of this situation instead of being childishly disposed towards it, but on the other hand, I need him to tell me why the fuck he's misplaced his verve so abruptly.
It's a tragedy that I have no idea why Lucien is so upset all of the sudden. It never really crossed my mind before. The only thing that did cross my mind was a solution to it, which I suppose isn't so bad after all. There's no use getting hung up on the cause when the antidote is all that matters, but a cause sure as hell would appease me for a bit. However, Lucien will never spill anything other than his own blood, so prying is as futile as his reason for neglecting my faith in him in the first place.
No matter what, he will not share, though at least he disguises it with the encouraging words of "I don't know what I'd do without you, Ginsy" aimed towards me when he's the one who needs them desperately, as he's elucidated that he's capricious and complex and callous at times, but he's himself, and himself is exasperating, but himself is what I love, and himself is what I'm losing, the delightful young man whom I thought would be everlastingly delightful.
I am an idiot to surmise that anyone could be everlastingly delightful just because my companion sometimes thought he was so much better than the rest of his peers, so much happier, and as he would glance past the dinner parties of people caged by taxes and politics, he would laugh because that was not him, and then his approaching wilderness would laugh, because he is caged by something greater, something that will snatch him from the bed of joy and throw him to the dirt-slicked streets, something that will ensure that he catches against the vindictive pebbles whose wit is sharpened by the rain, something that will invade his head and leave the blame to himself, because with taxes and politics, the government is at fault, but with demons and stones, there is only him.
Is Lucien just now finding that the peak of his exploration is sobbing behind a silhouette striding undisputed through the halls of other people's obliviousness? What about cracking his arm like a twig falling from those twigs in an ascendent betrayal? Does he not deserve more? Does he not deserve life in a mind that's ushering him towards death? Does he not deserve to eventually dig the fact that I care into his head?
When will he understand that I would do anything for him? When will he understand that his life is worth living? When will he understand that he has benefited me in ways that I can't even describe? When will he understand that understanding the world is no different than understanding himself, that it should be easier? The only thing he thinks is easier is being a child, reminiscing on the halcyon days when shit didn't mean a thing beyond shaping his personality forever, but since then surely he has explored so much! Alas, he would be forever this child until the depression swarmed him, but that would be okay for him, because as this child he explored the dips and turns of the trees and the dips and turns of his very bones, conviviality the marrow too sweet to swallow. But who knew that he, a playful enchantress, would become the bitch of melancholy? Certainly not the charming young schoolboy who only cared for self-induced entertainment, and certainly not me if I knew him back then, which I might not have wanted to, but I feel like I could've been that childhood friend who unknowingly could've redirected the route of Lucien's future into something more pleasant, something that isn't this, sobbing on the porch of a place that's supposed to protect you but only serves as a reminder that the sole thing grounding him here is the fact that capitalism has told him he needs to pay rent or else fucking die, as if he wouldn't do that anyway, but he has a certain knack for listening to people that shouldn't hold any influence over him yet hold more than his own best friend does, and I'm just so fucking sorry that it had to be this way for him when he of all people should be able to make his own decisions without the presence of consequences larger than normal looming over him like eyelashes snapping together in the ebony textile of death.
But as he says, death is inevitable, and the world will blink, and he will not vanish. He will die, just like every human he abhors, and now we're just waiting for the click. I comprehend that I will be devastated when that click slides through my ear canal like the drying wind upon my damp face of tears and helplessness.
~~~~~
A/N: this is so long (that's what she said hahaihatemyself)
atomism: the belief that all things in the universe are constructed with indestructible materials
~Dakotater