The Icy Hand of a Ghost

Sobriety, Day 158.

If there was ever a time for a relapse, this would be it.

Hell, The Bodhisattva is bracing for it, like it’s a storm on the horizon.  Like it’s bad weather, a hurricane, and not an act that he would engage in.  The philosophical man would likely say that’s how he stays feeling safe, by “othering” his disease.

Likely wisdom says that isn’t the healthiest way to go about things, but…he hasn’t taken that plunge, not yet.

Not that most in the programs would blame him.

He floats in and out of his local meetings like a ghost.  He doesn’t share much, and when he does, it’s to pose questions to a room that lacks the answers for them.  Do you ever feel like you haven't earned the life you’re leading because you're not suffering enough, constantly?  Do you sometimes daydream about having an ‘accident’ in the kitchen and just gouging your arm all to shit?  Not because you like pain, but because it’ll make everything better.  

The great irony of Sage Pontiff is that he’s among people who probably get him the most, but he still feels like he’s alone.

Pax isn’t…gone, per say, but they won’t travel together anymore.  No more adventures, no more fight to be had, no more long ponderous talks outside with a joint of sacrament being passed.  He should have seen how much helping Pax gave him purpose, really.  He should have seen it coming.  The Bodhisattva was a man divorced from his great cause, because his great cause was an excuse to hurt people.  Paxton treated him like a person rather than a caricature to be tolerated, which is more than Sage could say for some of his team across the pond.  They both loved mixing it up, loved a good fight…as much as he could ever say he found a real soulmate, it was Paxton Ray.  And as much as he needed something to replace his ‘cause’, Paxton had a need of help, right then and there.

And now that’s all resolved.

And now, may the gods and furies and psychic energies bless him, Pax is out.

Sage has given this some thought.  What if he were to just leave, right?  What’s holding him?  There’s certainly the money, though admitting that makes him feel as empty as any corporate drone he’s ever looked upon with derision and pity.  Balming this is that he’s never used his earnings to buy anything stupid, or even improve his station in life whatsoever by capitalist terms.  He still drives his signing bonus camper van, he and Cliff still shack up in the latter’s rotting duplex, he hasn't bought new clothes in the better part of two years.  All that money goes directly where it can do the best–bail funds, mutual aid, genocide relief in Palestine, feeding the needy, making sure good people keep the landlords off their back.  Hell, sometimes when he’s on tour, he’ll just post up in a bad section of town and give everything he has to the homeless until his pockets are empty, then he’ll find somewhere to park and sleep.  It’s how he best can justify tempting his beast with his profession–coincidentally, the only profession he’s ever had any real talent for.  Sure, he’s got a gift for oratory, but the exploitation that came hand in hand with it…well, he’d rather avoid.

He’s never cared about wins or titles or accolades, and frankly, he’s never been able to hang with the type of people who hold belts anyway.  They have a hunger in them that’s all paranoia, their insides are a frightened child who’s grown themselves into a mutant of immense strength and violence to prove something.  Sage has never felt the need to prove.  Never felt that drive.  He figures one day maybe it’ll show up, but at this exact moment, he can’t see it.

He’s too numb, too lost.

And the booking sheet…didn’t help.  Not one bit.

Because that’s a ghost that Sage would just as soon forget, which makes him feel like the world’s biggest coward.  He prides himself on being a man who does the work, who faces the uncomfortable, who digs deep to mine the truth while others float with entirely unexamined lives.  There are moments, and this is one of them, when Sage is a little jealous of people who can exist with no need to assess themselves.

As is, there’s the name, staring at him from his screen, like the icy hand of a ghost on the back of his neck.

“Ria”.

—

“So you basically attacked this person a bunch and then when it came time fer the rubber to hit the road…you didn’t have it?”

Sage sighs, taking the good-natured rib with a soft smile.

“Sure, Beef Barn, you could say that.”

“Okay.”  Cliff settles himself into a broken down chair that’s upholstered almost equally with duct tape and cheap leather.  Taking a sip of coffee from a mug that looks almost comical in his gigantic dockworker’s mitt, he considers for a moment before wiggling his mustache and continuing.  “What else could you say about it, then?  Look, it’s clear this has got you pretty thoroughly fucked up.”  Sage thinks on this, taking a slow toke of his almost novelty-sized cone joint.

“It’s not like I don’t know that I was…at minimum inconsiderate, but more accurately a selfish, violent bastard.  And I’ve done a lot of work to put that person behind me.  It’s different than when I meet with people I reach out to.  Does that make sense?”

“I mean I think I’m gettin’ it.  Ya got blindsided.”

“Blindsided and like...there's sins before I joined the company.  And those are ones that I’m always interested in mining because I was so isolated from culture as a whole.  I was left to my own devices and that’s who I evolved into, what I became.  That’s scary, all caps.  But to a certain degree I can understand it, because I didn't have anyone checking my notions or delusions.  There wasn't a lot of feedback save for how great and wise I was.  So slap me in a vacuum at 17, that’s what you get.  I don;t like that, but it’s the truth.”  The Bodhisattva curls his feet underneath his thighs, folding his lanky body into a tight space as he idly strokes his lengthy beard.  “Ria wasn’t m e in a vacuum.  That was me with an audience.  That was me showing off, high on my own supply, and what’s worse, I sought it out.  I took a shine to someone and thought I’d help them become better by beating them backstage, entirely unprovoked.  This isn’t me picking fights with people I know can fuck me up, Cliff.  This was something way fucking worse.”

His eyes tell the story, or at least all the story Cliff Pike needs.  He sets his coffee down and strides to the couch, pulling Sage into an embrace with his massive arms, all chateaubriand and wrought iron.  He holds him close, and when he speaks, his voice is soft and calming in a wy we haven't heard before.

“Y’aren’t there anymore, Sage.  You’re right here.  Feel my arms, feel my heart.  Feel that busted-ass couch you’re on.”  He gives Sage’s temple a tender kiss.  “You aren’t who you were.  You’re miles away from him.  He’s so far back you can’t even make out but a speck on the horizon.  Don;t fuckin’...focus on it.  Focus on who you are now.  Where you are now.”  Slowly, Pontiff snakes his arm up, wrapping it around Cliff’s massive neck and squeezing tight.

“Who I’m with now?”

“Yeah, you would try focusing on that too.”  There’s a lingering moment as Sage’s breathing returns to normal, as the color returns to him, and he starts to look like the golden druid he has become.  Cliff breaks the embrace with a kiss, marching back to his chair and his joe, smiling.  “Look, I can’t pretend to know shit about fuck, Sage.  I’m a simple dude with simple needs.”

“Hardcore punk, fighting cops, and mutual aid?”

“Yeah, and some dirty hippie that decided to make me fall in love with him.  All I’m saying is, I’ve seen who you were, and I see who you are now.  And there’s a fuckin’ uncrossable gulch between ‘em.”  Sage looks to him with a sad smile, exhaling the smoke of his potent sacrament from his nose like a fantasy dragon.

“You haven’t seen that person.”  To this, Cliff scoffs.

“Somethin’ about me make you think I don’t know how to use Google or YouTube?”

“So…you’ve seen me.  Seen how I attacked her.”

“Yeah.”

“...any thoughts?”

“Yeah, somehow you used to dress even more like a head shop douchebag.”  Noticing Sage’s lack of laughter at the dig, Cliff’s smile drops.  “It wasn’t great, Sage.  But you knew that.  And you know if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be.  I’m not with your ass because I’m afraid of being alone or because you’ve tricked me–as if you could, honestly.  I’m here because I want to be.  As far as I’m concerned, the guy I’ve seen in them videos is dead and buried.”

This causes a quiet pause in the room.  Sage spends his time nodding slowly, taking another long drag.

Cliff reaches into the space between them, holding a massive mitt wide.  Pontiff fits his in the rough palm, and they hold onto one another, squeezing slowly.

“I’m actually scared.”  This confession from The Bodhisattva causes Cliff’s eyes to widen slightly.  Noticing this, Sage waves his hand.  “Not about the match.  Just of all the negativity this has dredged up in my skull.”  Cliff considers this, then downs the rest of his coffee and stands up.  Reaching out, he beckons Sage to join him, and with a curious smile, Pontiff stands up too.

“Alright, so.  Yer gonna stop focusing on this reaction that you had zero control over, and yer gonna stop living in the past.  Yer gonna focus on what you can actually do something about.”

“What’s that?”  With this question, Sage’s boyfriend grabs him by his shoulders tight, locking eyes with him.  The smile that creeps across his cowcatcher facial structure is stern but inviting.  His choice of word, however, is stern.  Motivating.

“Win.”

—

Hi.  Again.  It feels like it’s been lifetimes, even though it hasn’t.  Time has a tendency to dilate around me in the first place, but I’ve undergone so many different versions of who I am since we last met, it feels like I need to reintroduce myself.  I’ve littered the road behind me with husks of who Sage Pontiff used to be, shreds of flesh and blood marking my path.  So to you I say hello, greetings, mera dil aapaka svaagat karata hai.  I’m Sage Pontiff, known as The Bodhisattva of Transformative Experience.  I’m an addict.  Addiction is sometimes seen as a weakness, and I suppose I can’t deny that the moments that I give in to the temptations that are as assuredly a part of my framework as my bone and sinew…I do feel weak.  But there’s tremendous strength in the admission, too.  Tremendous freedom.  But the price you pay for that freedom is there’s no more hiding.  No more running away.  Sure, you can give in to the disease, but now you know.  Now you know it’s not society or trauma or any other boogeyman you can assign it.  There’s just you and your disease, you and the demon you feed.  Frankly speaking, you’ve every right to have a bad taste about me in your mouth.  Every right to want to spit in my face.  I’m ashamed, legitimately, and that’s a lot to contend with.  Smart money is I should disappear, I think.  Find a trade.  Forget who I was and focus on who I could be, the good works I could do, the positive influences I could be providing in my community.  There’s so much that I could achieve–I could chop off all my hair, take out all my piercings…I could truly disappear into another life.  A life where no one has heard of Sage Pontiff or the wicked things he did.  A world where I no longer have to face ghosts of my past like you.  But as much as I’d like to?  I just can’t.   I don’t know why.  Y’know, if I engaged in therapy, they’d probably tell me that I’m actually looking forward to this, that the fear that gripped me was just a knee-jerk response.  They’d tell me that I’m finding new pathways to replace physical pain and that I’m playing a darker, more dangerous game of chicken by consistently engaging in harrowing emotional strife.  They’d probably tell me to fuck on off from this business just as fast as anyone.  But I just…can’t do it.  I have to be here.  Have to face my demons, I have to face you, and I have to prove to myself that I can do this and not totally spiral.  So I apologize.  Because this isn't just another match for me, this is me working through something.  It’s not great.  But sometimes things aren't.  Sometimes things have no value.  They’re just facts.  And facts are we have to meet again.  Trade pain again.  And maybe when it’s all over, I’ll feel absolved.  If only for a moment, an hour, a week.  But I’ll take it.  Namaste.