Michael Welch – on his guilty heart.

Tampa, Florida

November 29, 2000

Paul,

There are traces of guilt in my blood and flecks of blood in my stool. The guilt doesn’t hurt too badly. But every time I turn around before flushing, the blood really worries me. It’s been a problem since I was ten, if you can believe that. I have a real aversion to being probed, so I put it off all these years. At sixteen, there were still no ill effects, and I began rationalizing: if it hasn’t killed me by now it must be harmless. But I’m moving to a new state, and I want a clean bill of health; like a foot soldier. So I’ve resolved to get the problem taken care of within the next two months, before I move; while I still have a job that will pay doctors to remove blood from my stool. I’m leaving in two months, but I told The Little Red-Haired Girl that I was leaving, forever, in three days. I don’t feel that guilty about lying, but I do feel guilty about not feeling guilty. Maybe I’ve turned callous. Maybe I’m bleeding because unprocessed guilt is burning the inner wall of my stomach or intestine like a clump of undigested pizza I shouldn’t have eaten before going to bed with a belly full of beer, at 4 a.m. Maybe the guilt drills a hole and blood drains through it and into my stool. Or maybe the blood is actually leaking down from my broken fucking heart: I lied to protect myself. Along with more lascivious reasons. See, she and I had this agreement, vaguely spoken, that if we ever knew we were never going to see each other again, we could finally have one night of fornication. At the last dramatic moment before I moved, we would fuck, despite her boyfriend (whom she would never leave, despite her feelings for me). Never seeing each other again would ensure that she wouldn’t bear the full weight of her guilt, or worry about wanting more. Can you believe that in almost two years of this drama we haven’t slept together? There were several close calls; the first time, as we were about to conjoin, she said, still smiling: “I’m going to cry after this.” So I pulled her pants up. I often wish I hadn’t. I still love her so much; it’s almost defeated me. I’ve stayed away from her for a couple months. It’s just too hard. But she showed up last weekend, when your boy, the Semi-Famous Author, came down from New York for the reading I set up at a local bar. Jesus, it was insanity. One of the most amazing weekends of my life. Semi-Famous Author has been such an influence on me and it’s always a charge to meet one’s inspirations, especially when they’re thanking me for hooking them up with a beachfront hotel room and a free bar tab. He and I got along really well. At the reading he groped all the women, danced like a fool, talked loudly, and blew up the spot like a rock star should. He was a character: drunk and lecherous and charming and disarming and fun and worth all the attention he was asking for. The Little Red-Haired Girl was not exempt from his unruly love techniques. They danced drunk and furious and clumsy like two kids spinning each other around forever or until one of them inevitably falls and gets hurt. I was busy running around, choreographing the event, making sure the band played on time and that the local authors didn’t drone on too long. But every once in a while I’d stop and watch Semi-Famous Author and The Little Red-Haired Girl. She looked genuinely scared of his enthusiasm at certain moments, but they danced for a long time. Even when Semi-Famous Author kicked over three pint glasses while dancing, and the loud shattering attracted the attention of everyone in the bar; he and The Little Red-Haired Girl didn’t concede a moment to embarrassment. They just kept on spazzing out, on a pile of sharp glass. It was scary and someone should have stopped them. The Little Red-Haired Girl’s best friend slid up next to me and we watched their dance getting faster and faster as they ground thick shards into the wooden dance floor. “I wish her boyfriend was here to see this,” she huffed, annoyed at The Little Red-Haired Girl’s flirtation. “I wish he’d been there all the times she spent the night at my house,” I said, immediately feeling weak for displaying such bitterness. “I’m sorry,” I said. “They’ve been feeding me free beer all night.” Later, as Semi-Famous Author began his drunken, boisterous reading, he bellowed for The Little Red-Haired Girl to join him at the microphone. When she got there, in front of the whole bar, he asked her – the woman I love, the only woman I’ve ever loved – to kiss him. She said no. He begged her. It was hilarious. She offered him her cheek. No. He pulled a twenty from his suit pocket and hung it out tall before her eyes, shaking it like a sandy beach blanket. “I will pay you to kiss me. C’mon.” The crowd at the bar urged her on, save those who know how much I love her. But when she finally kissed him, and the bar erupted in a cheer, it didn’t upset me. He’d schmoozed all the women that evening. That was his deal. Watching Semi-Famous Author kiss The Little Red-Haired Girl was funny and moving: my two inspirations kissing. My immediate life had come full circle. She went and sat down and he held his novel close as he read; in the other palm he held the audience. He was so damn funny. I felt so proud to have brought him to poor, uncultured Tampa. After the reading, he and I came back to my dark apartment for bong hits. He apologized for trying to fuck The Little Red-Haired Girl. “I just don’t control myself very well when I’m drunk,” he said, blowing blue smoke toward my high living room ceiling. “I’m an alcoholic. Explain that to all your girlfriends tomorrow morning. Especially The Little Red-Haired Girl.” I told him not to worry. I felt proud; out of all the women in the bar, he’d picked the one I think of as I fall asleep every night. “She’s crazy about you though.” He continued. “You should go out with her.” Everyone responds that way when I tell how much I love her, and how well she treats me. “Go for it!” they say, as if it’s all just a matter of me not acting on it. It gets irritating, like they’re blaming the whole thing on me. But when Semi-Famous Author said it, I was more amazed than annoyed: I mean, here’s my favorite writer, who not twenty-four hours ago was, to me, but an idealized amalgamation of his literary characters. And now he’s waxing philosophic in my apartment and letting me behind the scenes of the romance that’s been defeating me for almost two years. “She said you’re perfect,” he said, passing me the bong. It was fucking heartbreaking. And that’s when I decided that I couldn’t ever speak to her again. So I lied to her, told her I was leaving Florida two months early. Tomorrow night we will see each other for the “last time.” The lie will enable me to do two things: 1) avoid her for the next few months, thus keeping my poor heart from breaking the rest of the way; and 2) have sex with her NOW. There’s a good chance she’ll change her mind at the last minute. She’s capricious, unpredictable; all those torturous, romantic traits that make people compelling. I have no idea which way this will go. But I do know that it will be dark in my apartment when she knocks, because I plan to keep the lights off. And when she knocks and enters I will close the door behind her and we will hug like we usually do but she will squeeze me much harder because she’ll think she’s losing me. And after a couple minutes of hugging I will ask her, quietly: “How many people are there in the world tonight?” And if she realizes I’m lying, she will say, “How can you manipulate me like this if you really love me?” But I’m hoping she will say: “Two,” so I can ask her, “Who are those two people?” And I hope she will say, “Me and you.” And later, if we’re dancing so blindly as to knock over a pint glass and spill beer on my carpeting, I won’t even clean it up. “Ah, just leave it there,” I’ll say. “I’m moving out in a couple days. What do I care?” And I expect that my heart will be racing, pumping guilty blood to my extremities. I’ll keep you posted.

Michael Welch