When I lived there the first time, I had moved in with Shannon. The place was owned by an ancient woman that lived in the other half of the duplex. She had a catatonic daughter living there with her. It creeped us out to no end to know she was over there caught prisoner in her own body. It was actually the third place that we had lived together. It was at a time when I had just dropped out of art school and I was painting murals and doing dominatrix work to get by. I was possibly at my worst in many ways. I was dealing with a genuine trainwreck of a roommate situation, and there were too many volatile characters about. You could have ask me then why in the hell I had moved into that situation, and I couldn't have told you... still can't. I was on a lot of drugs and I was so jaded that I had no problem putting out cigarettes on another human being for money, albeit a large sum of money. Once while we were painting the kitchen I actually nodded out for a few hours on top of the refrigerator.
I had a soft spot for crazy people at the time. I was playing with fire because I was fooling around with this boy named Brannon, who was a real live crazy indian. His were the first black eyes that I'd ever seen and I fell into them every time we had a moment alone. Not to be crude but he got me off in some of the strangest ways. We had the kind of chemistry that everyone in a room could feel. He had grown up with Shannon and she felt that she has come lease on his soul, and it made for some really odd and intense stolen moments. I knew all along that I was just playing, but she couldn't get past it.
Eventually I had to quit the whole life and that place. I had this idea that I would lose respect for humanity on the whole and possibly die if I had stayed. I decided that being homeless was better and kicked heroin ( for a time anyway) while couch surfing. It something that I suggest you never try. I still stand by my decision to become homeless rather than fall down a well of complete chaos with those people. Half of them are dead now. There are very very few people that I still see that ever knew about that place in my life.
Imagine my surprise and grim curiosity when my ex-wife tells me that she is living there. I had the hardest time when I went into the bathroom and I am peeing and looking at the bathtub that I used to shoot up in, because it was easier to hit my veins in hot water. It fucked with me even though I have been off it for thirteen years. It looked quite different that when I had lived there. Shannon and I had ripped off a few layers of wallpaper in strategic places at different depths (that woman must have repapered that house a half a dozen times) and we then painted a thin layer of paint over it so that you could still see the differing patterns behind it. We had painted the entire kitchen Baker's Pink. I hated leaving that paint job behind. Also missing was the rotary wall mounted phone that had hung over the toilet.
So today, with all of their things emptied out of it. I walked into each room and said goodbye to everything that happened inside of those walls. Some of it hilarious and sweet, some of it absolutely terrifying, most of it in the arms of my opiate lover. I'd had some of the biggest revelations of my life, and many of the weirdest sexual encounters that I'd had at that point in my life (few have come close since) and learned so much about my self in that house. I said goodbye to the giant trees in the backyard and I said goodbye to my ex-wife and my ex-lover. I got in my newly acquisitioned car and I drove away. I feel like I have finally gone around that corner that I have been contemplating for a while now.
