13 Reasons Why/Tape 12: Cory 4

(Part 1 of this story can be found here. Part 2 is here, and part 3 is here.)

Of what I knew about Cory—or thought I knew, anyway—the one thing of which I was certain was how much he loved the disabled teen in his care. Cory doted on the boy. The kid was so developmentally challenged that he couldn’t recognize faces, or respond to questions, or even make his own needs known. He simply breathed, and slept, most of the time. Still, Cory spent hours every day finding ways to entertain his charge.

Once a week Cory would sweet-talk the nursing staff at the home where the boy lived and decorate the boy’s room with a new theme—construction paper cacti and cotton ball tumbleweeds for Western Week, cut-out comets and planets and glow-in-the-dark star stickers for Outer Space Week, bunnies and Christmas trees and pumpkins for the holidays that came around three times as often per year as they do for the rest of us. The home’s staff seemed to eat out of Cory’s hand, particularly when he was handing them small gifts during the thrice-annual Christmas celebrations; they’d drag out old decorations from the cupboards for Cory to use however he wanted.

During the long evenings he was on duty, Cory would sit in the chair by the boy’s bed. He’d paste into oversized albums all the photographs he’d taken of himself and his charge, or of the boy and his parents. Sometimes he’d blow them up for the multiple bulletin boards he’d hung around the room, all angled so that the kid could (in theory, anyway) see them from his stationary position in the bed, without turning his head. On bad nights, when the boy was fitful and restless, Cory would stay awake reading aloud to him. His dependent wasn’t aware enough to understand the stories, or really, whatever was going on at any point, but no matter. There wasn’t anything Cory wouldn’t have done for him.

At first, when I heard about all the many devotions Cory lavished upon his patient, I thought him a seemingly bottomless well of selfless love; Cory’s attachment was one of the things that I initially found most endearing. Later on, as he got to know me better, Cory told me the story of how the child ended up in a full-time care facility—and I realized that much of Cory’s extreme dedication to his job arose from guilt.

When Cory had first started working for the boy’s parents, a year or more before I knew him, the teen had lived at home. Cory took care of him in a wing of the parents’ house. Then there was an accident. It didn’t happen on Cory’s shift; it didn’t really involve him at all. Cory really only had one night off a week, and one week he chose to travel into the city for fun. Whoever was supposed to be looking after the boy in Cory’s absence simply didn’t. The kid twisted himself into a position where his breathing was restricted.

Cory arrived back home to find the find the family in the emergency room of a private hospital; the oxygen flow to the boy’s brain had been reduced to about twenty percent of normal. There was enough brain damage to an already-damaged brain that the prognosis wasn’t good. The boy wasn’t expected to live. He stayed in the private hospital from then on.

Despite the fact that it hadn’t been Cory’s shift, or remotely Cory’s fault, and despite the fact that from what I could tell, neither of the parents ever felt resentment toward or blamed him for the accident, Cory felt directly responsible for everything that happened. He blamed himself for not being there, for letting his dependent out of his sight for a single moment. He couldn’t give himself a free pass, despite the earned night off.

I spent many long mornings in bed with him, naked body to naked body, holding him tightly in my arms from behind as he sobbed about the incidents of that evening. Over and over he relived his perceived failures. Sometimes the snot and the tears would make him so incoherent that I couldn’t understand a word he’d say.

I didn’t need to understand the words. I felt as if I were tiptoeing around that black abyss of despair hand in hand with him. There was nothing I could say—nothing anyone could say—as solace for so deep a grief. No platitudes, no reasoning, would make him feel better. The guilt should not have been his to grapple with. Had I been Cory, though, I would have struggled with the same regrets.
So directly responsible did he feel for their tragedy, I honestly thought many times that there was no way his remorse would allow him ever to leave the family.




Which is why I was very surprised when, in late autumn of that year, Cory abruptly announced he was quitting his job. After the incident in which he lied about his recuperation from his anal surgery to trick me into having sex, he’d decided to take a week and visit his family back west. The week turned into two weeks, then three.

I was relieved for a break, to be honest. I wasn’t having to worry, every time I saw a men’s restroom, that Cory was in there forcing himself to upchuck; I wasn’t barraged by his never-ending woes and worries. The headaches and chills and fatigue I’d been experiencing for several weeks disappeared when he did—which made me realize all the more that they mostly like were a result of the relationship’s stress and tension. With Cory away I felt unusually light-hearted. More energetic. In a better mood.

For three weeks my shoulders unclenched. The furrow in my brow disappeared. I was able to spend my free time as I pleased. I still wasn’t having sex elsewhere, but I was beginning to envision a life post-Cory . . . if it ever came to that.

Then he returned. Cory had been back maybe all of two days when he invited me over and sat me down on his bed. “I’ve got amazing news,” he told me. “I’ve given my two weeks’ notice. I’m getting the fuck out of here and moving to Brooklyn.”

I’m not going to lie. I was stunned. For a moment or two I was fixated on the getting the fuck out of here part of his sentence. It’s the kind of thing someone says when everything is rancid and they can’t wait to get away. That might apply to his employers . . . but surely he didn’t mean to include me among the things he was abandoning? Or did he?

That was my first thought.

My second and more disloyal realization was that yes—the burden I’d been bearing for the better part of a year might be lifted if Cory were to move away. All those mornings I’d spend listening to his bitching, all those times I’d fretted about what he was and wasn’t eating, My constant worries about his colon were creating the same stresses I’d experienced with my mother, growing up. If Cory were in Brooklyn, though, those apprehensions would all be gone. Well, not gone. I’d still worry about him. I’d just be doing it at a safe, almost relaxing distance.

Almost immediately, I realized how terrible these thoughts really were. The shock of the announcement had set me off-balance. That’s all.

When finally I summoned speech, I somehow turned into my father. So, Cory was giving up a good-paying job with free room and board? For what? Did he have a job prospect already? No? How was he going to support himself in Brooklyn? What was he going to do?

Cory, however, had it all planned out, in a vague, millennial kind of way. He would be moving in with a friend near Prospect Park while he decided what to do next. Maybe he’d take up modeling once again—he still had designers urging him to return to the business. Maybe he’d get a degree in nursing. Maybe he’d just wait and see what opportunity presented itself.

He must have seen the stunned expression written plain across my face. “Hey, hey—we’ll see each other,” he told me. “Absolutely, we’ll keep seeing each other. You can visit me in Brooklyn any time you want. We’ll walk Poochy in the park. Nothing will change. It will be like now, only in . . . you know . . . Brooklyn. Okay?”

“Sure. Okay.” I said the words aloud, and then repeated them to myself as he proceeded to rattle off all the fantastic things he could do in the city that he couldn’t do out here in the suburbs.

My simultaneous reactions of feeling abandoned and feeling elated only heightened my guilt. I really should have celebrated with Cory; if he was really that miserable here, getting out was the best thing he could be doing.

I couldn’t muster enthusiasm, though. Quite honestly, I felt discarded and hollow. Cory and I weren’t boyfriends in any traditional definition of the word, I realized. I had no hold on him. I had no right to resent him for leaving me for greener pastures.

Yet we’d been so close, for most of the year. I still felt bereft at the thought of him so far away.

Why was I already mourning him when he hadn’t even left? Cory and his dramas had drained my energies and left me exhausted. Every time I visited, I felt heavier and less enthusiastic. My body was still sabotaging me as well; I’d feel feverish and fatigued on the days I was supposed to see him. Sometimes my muscles would be wracked with pains before breakfast that would vanish after my shower. My energy was waning, day by day. Gathering up the strength to visit took a lot out of me, even though we weren’t having sex of any sort.

Cory had a crapload of stuff to dispose of, though, in the two weeks before his departure. He had two closetfuls of clothes and a large room full of his scrapbooks, photo albums, and memorabilia. He made plans to stash it all in a local storage facility.

I suggested that I help him move his boxes in my car. Sure, he said. He’d be happy for my assistance.

Cory, however, seemed absolutely unwilling to start packing. I offered to lend a hand, but despite the hard deadline of when he had to be out of his employers’ house, he didn’t betray any concern about getting ready. A week slipped by in which he didn’t really do anything. At the week-and-a-half mark, I couldn’t tell any difference in his quarters. Two days before the move date, I made him swear he’d spend all his time packing. On the Thursday morning he was supposed to vacate, I said, I’d be over at nine in the morning. We’d make as many trips as necessary in my car to the storage cubicle. Would he do that for me? Did he promise?

He promised.

But when I arrived at the house on that last Thursday morning, I found him sitting in his room, seemingly without a single concern, pawing through old photographs. I clenched my jaw and looked around the bedroom suite. Cory hadn’t packed a fucking thing. Oh, there were a couple of cartons in which he’d tossed some dirty laundry, but all his clothes, his books, his bags of junk and memorabilia—it was all still there in the same old places.

Was he going to change his mind and stay after all?

When I asked that question, he looked surprised that I’d dare think such a thing. Of course he was going. He just had to get organized, that was all.

I was ready to spend the entire day—morning, afternoon, and evening if necessary—to help him move. He, however, didn’t seem rushed at all. “Maybe let’s just put these in your trunk.” Cory indicated the six cartons with the dirty laundry. “I’ll take care of everything else later on. You don’t have to worry about all this. A lot of it’s just rubbish, anyway.”

With what car was he planning to move the rest, I wanted to know? He didn’t drive. How was he going to get out of here by his deadline? Who was going to help him? He was all alone out here except for me.

“Oh,” he said, still looking at his photographs. “I have a friend. He’ll help.”

I felt betrayed on any number of levels at that moment. Who was this mystery male friend? I’d set aside the entire day to help Cory move. I thought I was the friend, here. I’d thought I was Cory’s only friend, honestly. Despite the fact that I felt like crap, I’d planned to sweat and get the job done, no matter what. Cory was making me feel as if my contribution meant nothing to him—as if all my depleting energy had been spent on him for zero purpose.

But at the same time, I felt too weak to argue much. My strength was at a low point. I knew deep inside that I didn’t have the vim to schlep boxes for hours on end. So with pressed lips and a dead heart, I moved the half dozen boxes into my car and coerced him into a few things into a couple more. Then we drove to the storage facility and dropped them off. The trip, including schlepping boxes into his cubicle, took all of twenty minutes.

“So is that it?” I demanded, when I drove him back to his house. I know I must have sounded upset, and hurt. “You don’t need any more of my help?” I was hoping Cory would change his mind. I was hoping he’d tell me he needed me. He’d always needed me. In some foolish way, I counted on him needing me.

Once again, I was hoping for more than I received.

Cory gave me a smile. In the ankle-deep golden leaves littering the driveway of his employers’ home, he pulled me close and held me. For a moment, out there in the fading warmth of autumn, enclosed in his arms, my head on his chest, I again felt protected. Safe. He thanked me, told me I should go home, then turned me around and pushed me in the direction of the driver’s side door.

“We’ll see each other in Brooklyn,” he told me. His big hands reached out for mine, and squeezed them fondly. “Nothing will change.”

Every time he’d said those words before, in the preceding fortnight, I’d believed him. Or I’d wanted to believe him, at least. This time, as he uttered the promise with his face close to mine, I knew he was lying. He was telling me goodbye.

I’d always felt as if Cory collected me. He was done, now, and I wasn’t wanted anymore. He was tossing me out with the rest of his rubbish.

I blinked, but said nothing. He gave my hands a final squeeze, opened my car door for me, and with one hand on my back, gently pushed me into the driver’s seat.

I started the car and rolled down the window, parting my lips to tell him that I’d see him soon, in Brooklyn.

“Oh,” he said, cutting short anything I might have had to say. He bent down and looked through the window open window. In an off-hand, light-hearted voice he added, as if telling me about possible traffic delays on the route home, “When I was in surgery last month the doctor said I had what looked like syphilis. I guess I probably gave it to you. So you might want to get that checked out.”
Then he waved and turned to go into the house, leaving me behind with my mouth hanging wide.

I haven’t seen Cory since.




The doctor was kind. He took my temperature, poked and prodded, and asked me questions after I told him what I thought was wrong. “Do you know who might have transmitted it to you?”

I knew exactly who. Yes.

“Um, a regular partner? A one-time. . . ?”

I’d been seeing someone, I said. For almost a year. He’d only told me the week before I should probably get checked out.

The doctor was sympathetic. “He talked you into doing things, didn’t he?”

I didn’t know how to answer that question. Had Cory sweet-talked me into becoming his satellite? What words had he used? What hex had he cast?

Or had I simply fallen into his gravity, unable to exit my orbit around him?

I could only shrug.

“Well, the usual early onset symptoms of syphilis include short-term fevers and fatigue, admittedly,” he said. “Did you have any sores?”

No. I knew to look for chancre sores. I’d never had any.

“You may have been asymptomatic. It’s not uncommon. Do you mind taking off your shirt?”

I could barely fumble with the buttons. When finally it opened, he bit his lip. “Well. This certainly doesn’t look good.”

I shook my head, not understanding.

The doctor stood me up in front of the mirror. All across my chest, from neck to waist, my skin was mottled. The rash covering me hadn’t been there in previous days or weeks. It hadn’t even been there that morning, when I’d dragged myself into the shower before my appointment.

“We’ll have to run tests, of course, but when syphilis has progressed to its secondary stage, it presents in rashes like yours.” He kept on talking, his voice reassuring, as I stared at myself, stunned, in the mirror. “Of course, I’m sure you’re aware, there are many other sexually-transmitted co-infections that can occur with syphilis, up to and including HIV. I’m afraid have to test for a wide spectrum of possible infections. We’ll cross our fingers that the syphilis is easily treatable via injection. I’d hate for you to have to undergo a spinal tap.”

“Spinal tap,” I echoed weakly. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the scarlet and white needlepoint of my skin.

The doctor put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s take it one step at a time,” he suggested.

I barely had the courage to nod.




I tried to get in touch with Cory in the weeks after, as my strength slowly began to return. I sent off trial balloon text messages, suggesting we get together and talk. I tried sending emails saying it would be great to see him. My motivations were never angry. I didn’t want retribution. I didn’t want an apology. I simply wanted to know what had happened? Why had I been so essential one moment, and so disposable the next? I wanted to know, was he well? Had he moved on?

At what point would it be all right if I moved on, too?

For every twenty texts I’d send I’d receive one in return. Garbled, incomplete responses, often sent at four in the morning. I’d ask when we could get together, how his new place was, whether he’d found a job yet, when was he coming back to pick up his belongings, if he’d heard from his former employers. Eventually I’d get back a photo of Poochy, or an LOL, but nothing more. Even those rare replies quickly evaporated

Before he’d moved, I’d purchased a luxurious leather-bound photo album for Cory’s Christmas gift. Now that it was December, I proposed getting together for lunch or coffee so I could present it to him. Great idea, he answered—which was the only text I received from him after his parting that was close to an actual sentence. But Cory never replied when I tried to set up dates. In fact, he never responded again to anything I sent. After Christmas, I stopped trying.

That was that, I thought.





One year later I got a text from Cory saying he was here, in town. I immediately texted back and asked where he was staying, and for how long he’d be here. He never replied.

Two years after that, he did the same thing—he texted to say he was visiting again and would I like to spend my Tuesday morning with him? For a fraction of a moment, I remembered our Tuesday morning trysts, flashes of warmth and brilliance and flesh against hard flesh. Then I sighed, too tired to care. Too tired, in fact, once again to have my heart dragged around the same way a dog scrapes his ass on a sidewalk. I turned off the phone, and simply didn’t reply.

I couldn’t invest any more energy. He’d worn me out.

For the longest time I imagined that what Cory and I shared was something beautiful and special. I thought of our passion as a spark of the Divine. A gift from the universe. A warmth and glow that transcends the everyday.

When two men meet and make a connection that seems more than ordinary, when the fireworks they create are good, and true, and memorable, and worth celebrating—that’s the Divine in them both,  mingling and speaking through their lovemaking. Those fireworks are the universe rejoicing and crying, Yes! Yes, this why life is lived! Enjoy!

Cory killed the Divine in me, for a very long time. He cast water on the fire and trampled out the embers, leaving nothing but smoke and char.

I still have the leather photo album I intended years ago for Cory’s Christmas present. It’s sitting in my closet, in a gift box, waiting to be given. Several times I’ve thought of repurposing it, of passing it to someone else. But I bought the album for Cory, and to Cory I still think of it belonging. It’s difficult for me to exhume it, much less simply to give it to another.





It’s been difficult to exhume these memories, too. But here’s a coda—and I’m still not quite sure what to make of it.

Earlier this year I was going through some old digital photos on my computer. I cleared out duplicates, got rid of the crappy shots, revisited old memories. I was browsing through photographs I’d taken in 2012 and froze still, as I came across one that triggered a forgotten memory.

The photo came from a hot morning in late spring or early summer of that year. A visiting friend and I had gotten up early and taken ourselves to the train station near me, for an excursion in the city. I don’t remember what we did that day. The museum, maybe, or a park.

My friend and I were sitting on a bench on the Manhattan-bound side of the tracks when a young man climbed the steps to the platform. He was tall, lean, and handsome—a youth in floppy basketball shorts and a tank top and large, dark sunglasses. He smiled and nodded at me as he passed; I watched him side-eye me from behind the glasses as he kept his head facing forward.

I knew I’d been cruised and thoroughly checked out; my smirk of pleasure from the passing spark made my friend raise an eyebrow. The stranger strode past and sat down on another bench a little further down the track.

“I can’t believe that dude is taking sneaky shots of you,” my friend told me a minute later. I looked over, and sure enough, the young man was oh-so-casually holding his camera so that the lens pointed in my direction. His thumb was poised over the spot on his screen where the shutter button would’ve been.

I was flattered, and only slightly embarrassed. “Well, two can play at that game!” I told my friend, cocking my phone. Smirking, I took a single shot of the youth taking photos of me. I don’t know whether he saw me doing it or not. But it was a silly, comic start to what was a light-hearted day of fun with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. The train arrived, and I forgot immediately about the boy from the train station.

Years later, I found myself staring at that photo I’d taken that morning in 2012. His hair was slightly shorter, and the sunglasses he wore covered most of his face, but the youth I’d captured one bench down from mine, his phone stealthily pointed in my direction, had been Cory.

Unmistakably Cory.

Cory, an entire six months before I met him in 2013 for what I’d thought was that first time, lounged on the porch railing of that enormous house in the back country.

I couldn’t get over the coincidence of it.

What had happened, here? Had he known all along—? When I said I felt he’d collected me, did that mean—?

If it was coincidence, that is.

I stared at the photo for a long time, unable to move, unable even to breathe. One thing I knew about my percolating questions: because they had to do with Cory, I’d never have answers to any of them.

When finally I managed a deep breath, it felt ripping a bandage from an unhealed wound and causing it to hurt fresh, all over again.







Afterword

During my hiatus, I’ve received from readers a lot of very sweet emails wishing me well. Most of them have recognized the amount of work I’ve poured into my blog and have expressed their thanks. I’m so grateful for those sentiments.

Many people who’ve written, however, have made the assumption that the reason I have decided to take a break is because of the so-called haters—that is, the men who leave nasty comments on my blog, and those who go out of their way to make sure I understand how contemptible I am to them.
I’ve had plenty of haters over the years. They wear me down, yes. But more than anyone, the men who have sucked the joy out of my writing (and to a certain extent, my life) are those who meant well. They’re men who claimed to admire me, who wanted to meet me—and many of them did—and who then, whether out of clumsiness or fear or whatever, failed to recognize they’d gone too far. A man can only withstand so many successive blows to the ego (even an ego as Jericho-sturdy as mine) before it begins to tumble.

What’s more, every single one of these men read my blog. They’re men who subscribed to my point of view, who enjoyed my writing. Or read my writing, at least. Some of them wanted to be written about. Others never intended me to know they were blog fans.

Maybe one of these men is you.

If it is you? Although there’s a small and petty part of me that wants to flip a finger in your direction, I’m not going to. I’m moving on as I write this series. A friend of mine shared with me something his grandmother used to say that I truly believe: People do the best they can. If they could do better, they would.

My advice, if you think you recognize yourself . . . or even if you don’t: do better.

All of us could stand to do better.