October 24, 2002:
Paralysis.
Walgreens, Powell Street. Sad-faced boy on his lunch break. With characteristic nervous energy he's walked fifteen blocks to buy cold medicine he could have found in the lobby of his building.
Tall: 6'5." Thin: 175 pounds. Thirty-one, but has the hyperactive metabolism of a teenybopper, and probably a teenybopper's emotional resources. Black jeans, black shirt, black shoes, black hair.
Is in real pain, though you'd have to look closely into his eyes to see it. His eyes are hazel, and there's something penetrating about them that causes insecure people to back away, intimidated. He's like his father that way.
His pain, though. To him it's like a film of gauze between the world and his consciousness, filtering perceptions and shaping decisions in subtle or not subtle ways. He understands this, but is confused by its impact on others. It's like some kind of magnet. To his surprise he's never been more attractive. He finds himself turning away from the smiles and hellos of strangers.
Sleeps just one or two hours. Awakens like clockwork at 2:06 am, weeping. In a different world he'd doze 'till dawn, which is the time when the electricity finally exits his body, leaving him not so much in peace as exhausted. In this world he has to work.
Turns toward the check-out counter. A familiar figure is passing outside. He can see her framed in the sequence of street-facing windows behind the cash registers, walking left-to-right down the slight hill.
Quick flash: size it up. Hair's all over: she's just gotten up. Was out drinking all night with her new boyfriend, an alcoholic process server who DJs at a downtown club. Buying Blondie's pizza for breakfast.
She's pale. Like death, he thinks. Looks unnaturally old. She's twenty-six, but, it could be forty. Her golden hair is pale like stale beer. Her eyes are gray and without highlight. She walks with a stoop, as if struggling to see the sidewalk underfoot. Her eyes are glassy. She doesn't blink enough.
He freezes. Part of him wants to run to her. Throw his arms around her, plead with her to stop hurting herself with the alcohol and the drugs, and everything else. Protect her. Part of him wants to run away and hide. Anything she'd say would hurt him to the bone, or if she said nothing, would hurt him worse. Part of him wants to slap her face for what she did to him.
He does...nothing. Waits, frozen, counting heartbeats. Twenty minutes, maybe. Doesn't see her return, but, there's been time to eat and leave. Walks rapidly through the crowd seeking escape, uphill to the left then around the corner.
It's more than a year before he catches another glimpse of her, although they live within walking distance of each other.