You, You, You

I'M NO GUIDE

We sat on that bench talking until sunrise, Eddie and I, occasionally going back into the all-night diner for coffee, a slice of pie, more coffee, and then eventually, once the sun was all the way up and we discovered ourselves exhausted and without sunglasses, for breakfast.  I had spent the darkest hours of the night listening to the story of Eddie’s father, stepfather, mother, and the anguish that it caused him— that apparently continues to torture him.  I felt myself growing helpless to comfort him, but I assured myself that just being there on that bench, just listening and being present, was enough.  Eddie kept a hand on me the entire time, either in my lap or across my arm, which told me that I might have been helping, in some small way.

When we sat down to our omelet breakfasts, bleary eyed and sluggish with lack of sleep, I hoped the warm food would perk Eddie up a bit.  It hurt me to see him this way— completely deflated and nothing like the energetic, life-loving man I had grown to know over the past week.  

“Izzy,” he said through a humongous bite of potatoes.

“Yeah, babe,” I smiled at him sweetly, thinking he looked beautiful even with the dark circles hanging beneath his ultra blue eyes.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What can I tell ya?”

“Back at the L.A. hotel… in the bathroom.  When you asked me what was going through my head at the show, when I was singing to you?  And you were singing back from the crowd?”

“Yes,” I remembered.

“What was going through your head in that moment?  It’s only fair I get to return the question,” he half-smiled at me, and I recalled the way our eyes locked as the music played.  I sighed and thought for a moment.

“Honestly?  You really want to know?”

“I really want to know,” Eddie said with a look of desperation that I didn’t really understand.  It seemed to me he was searching for something that might soothe him, but what was he expecting to find?

“Well,” I started.  I felt caught off guard, so I defaulted to a joke.  "I was thinking about sex,“ I said in my best deadpan.  I managed to extract a tired chuckle from Eddie.

"Come on, be serious,” he said, his smile fading but his eyes still twinkling.

“I told you, I’m always serious,” I said, cracking a smirk now.  I wanted to remind him of the day we met.  Eddie smiled but then gave me a playfully stern father look that let me know the joke was over.

“Okay what, Ms. Starnik, besides sex, were you thinking of?” he asked me, eyebrows arched in a mock-judgmental expression.  I thought about how to form my thoughts for a few seconds.  When I started answering him, it came out in a steady stream, with little or no effort at all.  I wasn’t even thinking about what I was saying, I was just letting out a flow of thought direct from my brain to my mouth.  I was kind of afraid of what I might say, but I couldn’t stop myself.

"I was thinking about your words.  How you manage to write these… words.  They really resonate with my life, Eddie.  They did before I met you.  You have no idea what they mean to me.  If you knew… if you could just… know.  I find myself in the dark so often.  So many people live in this darkness every day of their lives.  I’ve heard you talk about The Who and how they saved you.  Eddie, it might make you uncomfortable to hear, but you need to hear it.  Your words save people, too.  I’m one of those people, you know?  I have all this anger inside of me, so much pain.  Pearl Jam taught me how to use the anger and the pain and the shit, how to reconcile with it and live with it.  I use it as a tool now.  It’s like the pain becomes medicine.  Your music, your words… they helped show me how to do that,” I blurted out.  All of it, no pauses, no hesitation.  I couldn’t believe myself.  I blushed and held my hands up to my warm cheeks.  Oh my God, Iz.  You were not supposed to say all of that, especially not now.  Not here.