Next Time Just Send a Card

The Asshat and I were already “taking a break” after only being boyfriend and girlfriend for a day. He was away in California for the week and I was in Upstate. When I had gone to Upstate I was fully committed to breaking up with him when he returned. He was too crazy even for me. Which is something of an accomplishment. But during the course of the week, without remind me how much of a crazy asshat he was, I thought of all the good times we had together and forgot how long ago they had been and how they were becoming radically outnumbered by his assholic tendencies. And so I actually wanted to see him when he returned. He was supposed to perform at Rififi’s, but slept through his own gig because he was drunk on a park bench. When he did arrive, he was in a bad mood-a mood that I had to get him out of despite the fact that I had been waiting for him to show for an hour. After hanging out a bit, we walked to the park. He lay on a park bench with his head on my lap and cried about his mother. And I felt such sympathy for him in that moment-not at home in his mother country, not at home here-functionally illiterate in two languages-the ultimate outsider that I told him that I loved him. The only man I said that to in five years. He looked me in the eye and said, “Thank You” and then sent me home at two am on the 6 train alone.