Under the Influence: A Love Story from Beyond the Grave

Chapter 1

"Let me fall in love, that's all I wanna do/Let me fall in love, fall in love with you/Let me break my heart by giving it away/I'll let you tear me apart every single day"

- Lyrics from "Let Me", by Jonesy's Epiphany

"Once I wanted to be the greatest/No wind or waterfall could stop me/And then came the rush of the flood/The stars at night turned you to dust"

- Lyrics from "The Greatest", by Cat Powers



I tell myself that it was okay to have lost the last words on my screen. They were no good anyway, I say. Just trite verifications that I have lost my ability to see into the souls of things - but I'm not altogether sure. Perhaps, I think, there was a chance of resurrecting those words and making them into something grand and meaningful. Or maybe they already were grand and meaningful and I just hadn't realized their value. Maybe they were like me: unable to measure up to their potential, but bursting with enough kinetic energy to transcend lost goals. Or maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill.

"I've never understood that saying," Caleb says to me as he reads my laptop screen. The puffs of smoke that surround us make me sure that he's high. Or that I'm high. At least one of us is high.

"High as a kite," he laughs as I type.

"Hey!", he hollers, "that last line rhymed!"

He playfully sings his last four words again and again, meshing them into a bluesy beat before picking up my guitar. The way Caleb plucks the strings is like the way he used to touch my body: expertly, as if he had known preternaturally what to do. He was always very skilled with his hands.

I take another long toke and relate to him the scene in Children of Men where Michael Caines' character talks about "strawberry cough." In the old days, Caleb would've laughed and offered an amusing anecdote. Now, he only grimaces. "I haven't been to the movies in a long time," he says as he puts down the guitar and I hand him the j. I nod my head understandingly.

It's been a long time since I've seen Caleb. When we were dating, it wasn't unusual for us to go months without seeing each other; he lived in California and I lived in New York. Now we see each other even more seldomly. I guess that's just what happens…

I wake up with an empty stomach and a full computer screen. Caleb is gone. I know he'll be around this week. He's always there when I need him. Man, do I need him now. Before I can think of something to do, he's back in my bedroom, sitting on my bed and playing my guitar. "You paused when you were gonna write man," he says confidently. "You were thinking to write boy instead, weren't you?"

I don't say anything. He smiles smugly and starts strumming my instrument's strings. He knows he's right. It's been two years since we've talked, and still he can read my mind.

Sleep has stolen my high, so I don't speak. I simply desire the seduction of sentences. I want them to lay down before me and let me swallow them whole. I want to will them into beautiful and complex positions and forge hedonistic satisfaction from their company.

Even though Caleb's eyesight has waned since we've last spoken, I know that he instinctively has a grasp of the words on the screen. He plays a ditty we wrote while we were dating, coaxing me to sing the words. His voice still haunts me like it used to. I can feel his soul when he sings, like miniscule droplets of drizzle that drop from the heavens; it is a moist mist that envelopes me.

When we are done with our duet, there is an awkwardness between us, as if we have just cheated on our significant others and need to come to an understanding behind our actions.

"I hear you're moving in with your boyfriend," Caleb offers kindly, putting my guitar back on its stand.

"I've been doing a lot of changing lately."

"I know," he mocks. "Two years ago, there was nothing I could do to make you even consider moving in with me."

"I've been meaning to visit you," I quickly interject, taking the opportunity to change the subject. "It's just that I've been in a funk and-"

"It's okay," he says soothingly.

We smile at each other warmly, both of us unsure of what to do next.

"I read as much of your writing as I can," he says, gesturing to the computer. "I know you've been going through a hard time."

This is the part I dread, the part I know I'm going to repeat over and over again when I see people I know: explaining why my life is so messy, confusing, difficult. Relating the feelings that I can't help but feel, the visits to the shrink, the prescriptions that I never filled, the lies that I had to tell myself in order to feel normal. Coming to terms with the fact that there are 2 emails I'm afraid of reading, both from internships I'm certain that I've lost. Wondering if I should explain that I have no liquid assets, that all of my money is wrapped up in investments and that I need to find another job.

And the fear. Does everyone fear talking? Saying the wrong thing? It's not a fear of peoples' perceptions; it's a fear that your own doubts and insecurities are true. How do I tell people that I felt like a fraud, like I no longer knew the whys and hows? How do I tell Caleb that I've lost that part of me that he used to love - the part that I loved because it made me lovable? And how do I explain that I'm now a differ-

"I know you're a different person," Caleb cuts in. "You're personality is more defined. You now know what you're all about. You're afraid of pushing away the people you care about due to differences in your beliefs." He walks towards the desk and picks up a political science text book. "You've always been very assimilationist in your ways," he says knowingly. "But now you're more combative. You have a distinct feeling that you're right, and you don't want to back down."

Then we talk. We talk about the past, about the future, about the way things are and the way they should be. We talk about politics and love and music. We talk about the people in my life, the hard decisions I'm facing, the depression I was in. We talk about the fact that I've never really been in the driver's seat of my own life, and how that's changing.

"It's funny," he says hours later, as he prepares to leave. "All that time we knew each other, and I never doubted for a second that you knew what you were doing - but then, neither did you."

"This time," I say, "I really know what I'm doing, ya know."

"I know you do," he laughs. He goes down the list of statements I've made during our conversation: that I've decided to stop going to therapy; that I'm going for broke when it comes to love; that there's a possibility I'm in denial over the past; that there's a lot I need to work on in order to feel complete.

Caleb enters my email password and double clicks a subject line that reads "INTERNSHIP." "There are no mistakes in life," he says as he kisses me goodbye, "only consequences to your actions."

Later, I'm procrastinating on reading the email and sitting by myself in my bedroom. I'm thinking about moving in with my boyfriend. I'm listening to Cat Powers. I'm reading the issue of TIME magazine devoted to the human brain.

There are many truths in this world, I realize as I put down my pipe and take up my pen. There are the histories written by the victors, the secrets kept by the defeated, the universals that the entirety of humanity refuses to believe.

And then there are the truths that shed light on personal identity, none of which need be real.

The smell of marijuana clings to my clothes as I walk over to my laptop to check my email. A great weight lifts as I read it and find out that I haven't lost my internships. One task done, a million more to go. Maybe today will be the day I visit Caleb's grave.