Current and Former Associates

William M. McIntosh

I know it was a long time ago and I know we don’t see each other or speak anymore, although we could, and I know you’ve got a lot in your life and so do I, and I know this sort of drifting apart thing is rather common and forgivable, but do you remember me? Do you think about your old life while you’re possessing my current one?

I don’t believe in ghosts, even though they live in my house and in my head. Not so much as I can help it.

It’s just that I remember you, every one of you, and it sounds crazy, I know it does, but I sort of cherish those memories, even the weird ones, and especially the ones where I think I got hurt. The ones that never felt wrong or off or strange when they happened, but now feel like some sort of metaphysical wedge that sticks in my gray matter, like a splinter driven too deep in the hand. My mental tweezers are dull and cannot grasp a thing.

I think back to meek games of truth or dare when you want to pick dare, like everyone does, but you’re too afraid of the optics so you choose truth until someone is brave enough to cross a line. I think about playing Indiana Jones, taking turns being Harrison Ford, sharp lashes from imaginary whips and dramatic tips of invisible fedoras, pretending to save you while you pretend to need saving until it’s my turn to be captured by temple guards or trapped under heavy boulders. I remember embracing you like I thought adults in love embraced, defending myself against the accusation that I didn’t even know what sex was, shooting back that I did, then faking confidence when I said that it’s when grownups hug and kiss.

I think about scavenging old copies of the Sears catalog and Club Magazine, waiting the obligatory minutes for the dial-up internet to connect, for grainy images to stabilize and come into focus, for you-take-your-turn-and-I’ll-take-mine to become something else. I think about how things you do for harmless fun become things you start to love, and how loving those things makes you start to hate yourself.

I think about peering through tight fingers at things I know I shouldn’t see until they make me scared and sick, then looking at more, feeling sick again, and eventually facing them straight on, no salty saliva and no racing heartbeat, no sickness or fear. I think about how that voyeuristic lack of empathy only holds sterile for so long, until you’re twice the age you were when it started and it’s keeping you up at night.

I think about saying and doing things I swore I never would, crossing solemn boundaries like a brutal explorer, disregarding established traditions and norms of behavior, cutting off my own hands to spite myself. I mostly think about how many times I made up histories in my mind, focusing my head and heart towards things I had no right to, stumbling over and over and sporting a sharp sense of need and a heart that wouldn’t fill up.

I know it was a long time ago, and I know we don’t see each other or speak anymore, although we could, and I know you’ve got a lot in your life and so do I, and I know this sort of drifting apart thing is rather common and forgivable, even though I know fuck-all about forgiveness and even less about culpability, but I remember you. I remember you and I’m all but certain you remember, too. I often wonder with awkward excitement what you think of these things, how you think of me, and if you think I’m crazy to build them up in my mind so big. I wonder if you know that I carry them around like an oil-soaked blanket that I cling to for security, bearing the stains and being changed by it.

For what it’s worth, I don’t hate the part of me that’s been poisoned by this. I sort of like this swollen center of me, this aching afterburn. I know it’s given way to the parts of me that sit the worst in my soul, but I have a sort of ignorant pride about it, too. I’d lie and say I’d change it all if I could and pretend it’s not my friend, but I’m a bad liar, even when it counts, and especially when I tell the truth.