Someone Else's Story
by Andrew Miller
We sat in The Grandview to watch a first run action film. Every seat sold out. There, elbow to elbow in the packed house, the cinema overflowed with the stench of booze from the late-night crowd and the frenzied bar in the lobby.
You peered over as I leaned as far forward in my seat as I could, hoping to feel less overwhelmed by my claustrophobia. My peripheral vision cleared of obstructions, the cups of alcohol tucked neatly into the armrests a few inches further away from my nose. I felt your hand scratching at my thigh, hoping to hold mine, hoping to comfort me with its touch. I remained in my lean. You repositioned, your hand soothing my back, drawing circles with your palm.
Although I no longer crave the bitter taste of beer or sweet dryness of wine, the smell takes me back to not so long ago, when my life revolved around such sensations. I’ve been called a drunk, and still call myself an alcoholic. As I no longer even desire to drink, those names now are mere empty vessels, perhaps useful as diagnosis, but lacking the necessary substance to define my ongoing anxieties.
Sitting there silently while a phantasmagoria of sight and sound enveloped the theater, we hoped to lose ourselves in the intense drama of the story on the screen instead of our own. The paradox of horror, for myself at least, resolves through knowing the film will end – with or without resolution for the characters. This end freeing me to enjoy the ensuing tragedy. My personal paradox sees an ending as something theoretical, not absolutely assured, even though I know it is. My own ending out of focus, curtailing any joy I might find in my own tragedies.
A few nights later we found ourselves once again in the theater. Instead of the latest blockbuster, this evening we watched a theatrical interpretation of Joan Didion’s The White Album. The essay dramatically recreated word for word, characters from each storyline rising and rescinding from the background according to the ebb and flow of the essay itself.
“The patient experienced an attack of vertigo, nausea, and a feeling that she was going to pass out. A thorough medical evaluation elicited no positive findings and she was placed on Elavil, Mg 20, tid.,” read the actor-cum-doctor, a booming voice from the shadows.
Didion’s words about her failing nervous system elicited blueish bolts of lightning behind the actress. A stream of stage-fog set to deconstruct the lighting effects provided a visual representation of misfired synapses and missed transmissions.
In these early beats of the play, I felt your fingers squeeze mine just a little tighter. I wasn’t the anxious one this night, and so I moved as close to you as the restrictive seats would allow. Whether silent by demand or choice we seem to communicate more clearly this way, through touch; without all of the words that seem so easily collected, yet so often poorly selected, by us two writers.
Just days before you’d said, “It runs in my family on my dad’s side, and it’s a hereditary disease, so maybe.”
I’d brought up taking you skateboarding again, knowing the answer before asking, but not realizing there might be more behind the “no.” So maybe there was … so maybe … so indefinite an ending.
We’d sat so close on the couch. I’d questioned what could be done, if anything. I’d held you in my lap and stroked your hair. You let yourself be held and we enjoyed our moment of silent contemplation; a conversation by touch.
Actress-Didion spoke her line: “I might or might not experience symptoms of neural damage all my life. These symptoms, which might or might not appear, might or might not involve my eyes. They might or might not involve my arms or legs, they might or might not be disabling.”
Our fingers ringed round one another, our hips separated by the theater armrest. I replay your words about your constant imbalance, your restless legs, your blinding headaches.
“The condition had a name, the kind of name usually associated with telethons, but the name meant nothing, and the neurologist did not like to use it. The name was multiple sclerosis, but the name had no meaning.”
Didion’s daughter purportedly died from complications of her alcoholism. Your uncle died from MS related complications. The focused finality of these real-life afflictions. Sitting silently, our hands fully melded, hoping the words spoken remain someone else’s story.
We sat in The Grandview to watch a first run action film. Every seat sold out. There, elbow to elbow in the packed house, the cinema overflowed with the stench of booze from the late-night crowd and the frenzied bar in the lobby.
You peered over as I leaned as far forward in my seat as I could, hoping to feel less overwhelmed by my claustrophobia. My peripheral vision cleared of obstructions, the cups of alcohol tucked neatly into the armrests a few inches further away from my nose. I felt your hand scratching at my thigh, hoping to hold mine, hoping to comfort me with its touch. I remained in my lean. You repositioned, your hand soothing my back, drawing circles with your palm.
Although I no longer crave the bitter taste of beer or sweet dryness of wine, the smell takes me back to not so long ago, when my life revolved around such sensations. I’ve been called a drunk, and still call myself an alcoholic. As I no longer even desire to drink, those names now are mere empty vessels, perhaps useful as diagnosis, but lacking the necessary substance to define my ongoing anxieties.
Sitting there silently while a phantasmagoria of sight and sound enveloped the theater, we hoped to lose ourselves in the intense drama of the story on the screen instead of our own. The paradox of horror, for myself at least, resolves through knowing the film will end – with or without resolution for the characters. This end freeing me to enjoy the ensuing tragedy. My personal paradox sees an ending as something theoretical, not absolutely assured, even though I know it is. My own ending out of focus, curtailing any joy I might find in my own tragedies.
A few nights later we found ourselves once again in the theater. Instead of the latest blockbuster, this evening we watched a theatrical interpretation of Joan Didion’s The White Album. The essay dramatically recreated word for word, characters from each storyline rising and rescinding from the background according to the ebb and flow of the essay itself.
“The patient experienced an attack of vertigo, nausea, and a feeling that she was going to pass out. A thorough medical evaluation elicited no positive findings and she was placed on Elavil, Mg 20, tid.,” read the actor-cum-doctor, a booming voice from the shadows.
Didion’s words about her failing nervous system elicited blueish bolts of lightning behind the actress. A stream of stage-fog set to deconstruct the lighting effects provided a visual representation of misfired synapses and missed transmissions.
In these early beats of the play, I felt your fingers squeeze mine just a little tighter. I wasn’t the anxious one this night, and so I moved as close to you as the restrictive seats would allow. Whether silent by demand or choice we seem to communicate more clearly this way, through touch; without all of the words that seem so easily collected, yet so often poorly selected, by us two writers.
Just days before you’d said, “It runs in my family on my dad’s side, and it’s a hereditary disease, so maybe.”
I’d brought up taking you skateboarding again, knowing the answer before asking, but not realizing there might be more behind the “no.” So maybe there was … so maybe … so indefinite an ending.
We’d sat so close on the couch. I’d questioned what could be done, if anything. I’d held you in my lap and stroked your hair. You let yourself be held and we enjoyed our moment of silent contemplation; a conversation by touch.
Actress-Didion spoke her line: “I might or might not experience symptoms of neural damage all my life. These symptoms, which might or might not appear, might or might not involve my eyes. They might or might not involve my arms or legs, they might or might not be disabling.”
Our fingers ringed round one another, our hips separated by the theater armrest. I replay your words about your constant imbalance, your restless legs, your blinding headaches.
“The condition had a name, the kind of name usually associated with telethons, but the name meant nothing, and the neurologist did not like to use it. The name was multiple sclerosis, but the name had no meaning.”
Didion’s daughter purportedly died from complications of her alcoholism. Your uncle died from MS related complications. The focused finality of these real-life afflictions. Sitting silently, our hands fully melded, hoping the words spoken remain someone else’s story.