Honest as Apple Pie…
When I’m down, baking something usually helps– I allow the creative process to consume me instead of indulging in sadness or sullen inactivity, and the fruits of my labor are very tangible, fill me with a sense of accomplishment, and have the ability to brighten other people’s days.
Thin black sweater today with a disintegrating grid of white squares that reminded me of the Atari game Breakout. Light grey stone gently striated jeans, felt soft as fleece against the skin of my legs all day, but not quite as warm. At lunch today with William, over a bowl of matzo ball soup and half a club sandwich, William mentioned Sullivan and stated that he feels very bad for him and what he’s going through, is very angry at Gil for causing Sullivan pain and wants nothing to do with him. I thought for a minute about whether or not to say what I really thought, and I decided I felt like telling the truth.
I very calmly stated that I was thinking about it the other night, and came to realize I don’t feel bad for Sullivan’s situation at all, that I don’t feel any emotional involvement whatsoever in his or Gil’s current drama, and am not angry at Gil at all, because that would require emotion about their situation. William looked at me with absolute shock and a slight touch of horror. I hadn’t expected that, but I guess I should have. “But Sullivan was threatening to kill himself the other week!” William argued. “Yes, and I cared about whether or not he killed himself, of course, and I was very nice to him, I think. I mean, I listened to him for several hours and sympathized with him, at least outwardly. I think I was downright nurturing to him. But I don’t think he was really going to kill himself. I mean, if he hadn’t come over, do you really think he would have killed himself?” William thought to himself and answered, “No, I don’t. You have a point there.” I said, “That’s the thing: I really get the impression that a lot of the things he says are just for attention. I’m fine with helping him out and being sweet to him, but I’m not going to genuinely get my emotions involved when my brain is telling me the whole thing is a farce.” William nodded his head and looked deep in thought.
I continued elaborating on my point of view because I didn’t want William to think I was being cold for no reason. “Half of Sullivan’s time is spent thinking of ways to make people feel bad for him and seeing what privileges that wins him. I mean, I like the guy, personally, because he’s very entertaining to be around, and he really does seem to value us, but I’m not going to be fooled by the same tricks he always talks about using on other people. I find this whole situation with him and Gil absolutely ridiculous, too. They both agreed to have an open marriage. Sullivan was always the one in their relationship who was hooking up with other men, and Gil didn’t seem to care. Then the moment Gil starts having a fling, Sullivan starts monitoring Gil’s text messages without his knowledge, calling the guy Gil’s having the fling with and messing with him all the time, screaming at Gil and guilting him left and right, telling him for weeks he wants a divorce…Then finally, Gil says this is all too crazy for him and that divorce might be a good idea, and then Sullivan starts crying to everyone that Gil’s ending things with him and being so heartless and ruining his life, threatening to kill himself and blaming Gil, making all of their friends hate Gil. I personally think Sullivan brought most of this on himself because he’s a selfish, immature, and impulsive bastard and that’s one reason I don’t feel bad for him.” I paused and William looked perplexed, but told me I was right about all of that. I added, “And when he comes over, does he even ask either one of us how we’re doing?” William angrily shouted, “Noooo!” An old Jewish woman sitting in the booth across from ours looked over at us, and I smiled at her. Turned back to William. “He just immediately starts talking about himself, and the moment either one of us starts telling him about something unrelated to him, he starts looking at his phone and tunes us out and changes the subject back to him the very first chance he gets, usually interrupting us and never apologizing. I mean, I’m very grateful that he watched the cats for us while we were gone, and he really did a great job with them, and he is dependable. He does seem to always want to spend time with us, and I think that’s really sweet, and it’s not like I want to stop being friends with him, but I’m not going to buy into any of his drama. I’m just not. He just always wants sympathy and attention, and I really don’t think most of what he tells us is even true.”
I continued cutting into my matzo ball with my plastic spoon, pooling just a little bit of broth at a time into the spoon before depositing it between my lips. The above speech of mine, though focused and intent, felt very casual to me, just stating the obvious. I looked at William and he looked steaming mad, face clenched up, lips drawn in, cheeks and tips of ears reddened, slow and heavy breathing, eyes that could cut diamonds. I asked, “Are you okay?” “No…I’m fuuuurious!” “Are you angry at me?” I inquired nervously. “No. I’m angry at Sullivan!” I was very surprised by this. He continued, “I’m fucking furious! I want to call him up right now and screeeam at him!” “Oh, I don’t think you should do that” I tried to interject calmly. “I want to scream at him, ‘How dare you waltz in here and manipulate us and lie all the time and be so fucking selfish! You never even ask us how we’re fucking doing! You don’t care about us at all! You’re just a fucking user!’ I’m sooo ready to call him up right now and scream that at him.” William stared at his cell phone, which was on the table.
I tried to think of something to dissuade him, because I didn’t want a scene with Sullivan, or to have to explain that I was saying those things and William got riled up, or anything like that. “We’ve said a few things like this before about Sullivan, though. Absolutely nothing’s changed in the friendship since the start. I know he loooooves being friends with us, even more than we like being friends with him. I mean, it’s nice to have someone around who’s always so eager to hang out, and doesn’t flake out, and is nice with the kitty cats and all…And he’s entertaining! He’s so entertaining! And you said yourself, a few days ago, that half the fun of being friends with Sullivan is inflicting him on other people! He’s a lot of fun to take out. We get to see people’s reactions and all, to his insanity. He provides us with a lot of amusing stories.” I smiled encouragingly at William.
“I still want to call him! I’m just so mad and I can’t shake this anger. It’s really intense! I don’t know what happened…”
“I’m sorry,” I told him earnestly. “I really didn’t know this would make you so mad. I thought I was just stating the obvious. And I wanted you to know why I said what I did initially, so you wouldn’t think I was just some callous bitch…I thought you were aware of all of these things about Sullivan, and okay enough with them, like I am.”
“I have known these things. It’s just…that I tried to hide them from myself for a while, I think. I just tried not to think about them…I can’t believe I’m this mad!”
“Why don’t we get our minds off of this? I think we should go get ice cream! Come on, let’s go to Carvel! We can get soft serve cones and you can look at Cookiepuss! That should make us feel better, shouldn’t it?” He agreed. I put on my lipstick, Passion Fruit by Estée Lauder, and dragged him out of there trying to seem light and happy. In the car, his head started hurting really badly. He said it was from the anger. We ended up coming back to the apartment instead of going to get ice cream, and he laid on the couch with his head in my chest, and then slept for an hour. When he awoke, his headache was gone and his anger had dissipated. I was relieved, but still felt kind of guilty about getting him that angry about Sullivan. I honestly hadn’t known that anything I said would affect him like that.
I was kind of sad for the rest of the day, so I made William this apple pie:
