CHAPTER 17

"To free yourself of limitations, you must experience your personal hell. Because of the separate personal lives you think you live with others, there is a blind suffering. This affects the evolution of the universal consciousness. Before you can assist others with a healing, you must heal yourself. You step too quickly into the role of the "Fixer." You cannot fix anyone's problems or issues. If you carry an awareness of having resolved certain internal conflicts that have manifested or were still internal, you carry a vibration, a frequency that you broadcast that will affect people and your surroundings. Your presence can transmute energies once you carry the signature of that particular energy pattern which has been transmuted to higher frequency. So you must go inward, enter your personal hell and turn it back into paradise."

--R'AZEL CHANNELINGS

"You're drunk," said Lazarus ushering Michael into his apartment and smelling the trail of alcohol fumes behind him. Lazarus felt a chill pass over him. Funny, he thought for a moment, it seemed Michael faded in and out and look like a black cloud with sparks fly off from it. He rubbed his eyes; it was late; he was tired.

"Probably happens after six beers. Sorry to wake you." Michael walked in as straight as he could.

Michael took notice the apartment still was in transition. It had that college boy look moving toward a semblance of an independent life without a definition. Rachel was definitely attempting to bring a woman's touch and a semblance of "oh we are a couple though he doesn't know it yet." Displays of college days were all around, CDs scattered about, rebellious framed posters, philosophical books and stacks of books on architectural design. Rachel was a secretary waiting for motherhood and attempting to make a nest with her matching furniture, drapes and accessories to bring a sense of "motherly love". So there was an unspoken battle with the décor.

"Gay drama, definitely too late in the morning to be dealing with it," said Rachel, walking in from her bedroom, dressed in a matronly looking nightgown. She only needed a night cap to complete the effect.

"It's nice to see you too," Michael said sarcastically.

"I'm off to bed; you boys play all you want. Remember, I don't want to hear it."

He wanted to drop a house on her. Not that she didn't have her nice moments, but she was in love with Lazarus, and Lazarus gave her a lot of attention, too the point she devoted herself to him, hoping he would cross the line.

"She's just a bit tipsy and annoyed, some guy she liked at the party turned out to be gay."

"She could find another world to live in. There are a lot of beer belly red neck boys ready to make her their bitch." Michael flopped down in a chair.

"That's not nice."

"I'm tired. I'm glad I could come over."

"Well, it's late, let's get to bed." Lazarus walked over and offered him a hand.

He's always been a knight to my sleeping princess façade he thought. "Need a shower."

 

Rachel sat in her bed. She wanted to turn off the light but anger encroached on her face. She didn't want the dark room to give her anger a form she could not hold onto as she flashback to her conversation with Lazarus that played out as a film in front of her.

"Why do you bother with him," Rachel asked angrily straightening up the kitchen from their late night sandwich making.

"He's my friend," Lazarus said washing down the last bite of his sandwich with a beer. It was his fifth beer for the evening. He wasn't drunk just slightly buzzed.

"It's almost four in the morning. He's drunk. I don't feel good about this," she said with a heavy sigh.

"I wish you two would get along."

She grabs his plate and takes it to the sink to wash. He goes to the refrigerator for another beer. She gives him a dirty look as he opens another beer and takes a long swig.

"I don't like the way he looks at me, it makes me uncomfortable. It's like he looks right through me and looking at things that don't concern him. And I don't think he likes me. It's like we have to compete for your attention. I think he is bad news coming and the sooner you close the door on him; the better off you'll be. He's not like you; or me; he's dead weight. Having him as your flavor of the week will make people not respect you. They will think you are settling into a situation that will be a rock around your neck. You have great opportunities, and he's not the one to give you the right public face."

"Well, you haven't welcomed him with open arms. He's okay; he's just going through a lot. His writing has not gone well for him lately. And he's been having a rough time getting a club date. He just doesn't want to drop in and do a song at a piano bar. If he can make it here, he can make it anywhere and I believe he can. I think New York is hard for him but he's strong. He'll find a way to make it work. Sometimes we just need to be a friend no matter what."

"Sometimes friends are only here temporarily. They have a guess pass; three day restrictions. You don't have to listen to me. I don't want his dick. I hope his dick is big enough so you can forget all the shit he'll bring to your life."

"I love your optimism."

"I'm a woman who can see a man's limitations. I tell you, he's not right upstairs; he doesn't have that look in the eye like he use to; sometimes I swear, if I was in a sci-fi movie, I swear there were other people looking out his eyes."

"Now, who is being creepy?"

"I'm just saying; he's into things you don't want to be a part of or near. I feel it. You can call it a woman's intuition. But, after you introduced me to his friend, whatever her name is; I thought, she is a scary witch."

"Well, since he's been hanging around Marie, he's been a little strange. I like her but that whole African get up and talking about spirits is a bit unnerving but they are friends; though she weird me out sometimes. He's talented. You'll see; his talent will give him access to everything."

"Talent is never a free pass. And you didn't seem like the type to like his type. And, it sucks that you didn't tell me you were gay, and that he was your ex-boyfriend that you introduced as just a friend to hide your true nature after making me think you were available. And now, I find out he still has visiting privileges."

"What's your problem?"

"Your problem is that you were never available to me."

"We've had this conversation."

"I see how loving you are to him, it makes me sick. Is this what you want? You want some guy who is down and out on his luck, probably fucking anything that moves and God knows what disease he'll bring to you, just to get off. Where is love in this equation?"

"Look I don't pick your friends and stop acting the jealous bitch."

"Don't call me a bitch you pathetic cocksucker."

"Look Rachel, I think we both have had enough to drink this evening. So before we say something we can't take back, I think we should go to bed."

"Lazarus, I don't like you making me feel like Michael and I are competing for your affections."

"Look you're a friend; it's just that simple and there are no hidden agendas."

"You used me as a beard."

"You made assumptions."

"You didn't deny them."

"Look, I said I was sorry. If this is going to keep coming up, maybe we shouldn't be roommates."

"I'm just pissed off because once again, I meet a guy with potential and he is gay. I thought all the guys would be straight at the party except you."

"We're everywhere."

"I don't want to be a fucking beard. I'm a woman with normal needs. I want a man with normal needs. I don't want to be one of those fag hags. I'm not ready to live with cats for the rest of my life. Is this my life; only to be a gay man's best friend and have a different dildo for each day of the week?"

He hugs her. "I don't think dildos are your future. You'll meet somebody."

"Yeah and he probably have psychological problems. I don't want to be an old maid. I want to be a wife, a mother."

"Well, not tonight."

"Well, at least you're getting laid."

"I don't need to discuss that with you."

"Someone like Michael is not going to further your career, so you should make sure to have other options. Just remember what I said. His eyes are so wide open you could fall into them and find yourself on this long drop into an abyss. He's got a crazy man look. I've seen that look on homeless people. I don't have a good feeling about this. And what if he makes this a habit, getting drunk and showing up when he wants to. It's not like we have a lot of space, okay."

"He is still a friend. Besides, what we did to him wasn't that fair. I moved out on him with only a day notice. He thought we were going to get this place together in New York and then, when you decided to move here, it became a package deal. He didn't complain so let's cut him some slack."

"I appreciated the fact that he gave us a place to stay until we could find this place."

"Well, I don't want to turn him away if he needs help."

"Well, he's drunk and will not realize the inconvenience he's causing."

She hugs him again, closer and longer.

"I'm not going to sleep with you Rachel." Lazarus pulls back. "There will be no sex between us. And you're issue with him being black, sorry that you had a bad experience with blacks, but a lot of them had bad experiences with white."

"You could have at least got one more muscular, more attractive, like one of those sports guys. He's plain."

"Don't you think you need to go to bed?"

As she walked to the one bedroom in the apartment, she tossed this comment over her shoulder, "Well, now I have to knock before I come out my room to go to the bathroom, just in case you're having sex."

She knew one day Lazarus would understand she was the only woman for him and this was an experimental phase he was going through to get back at his religiously strict parents. She began to caress her breast with one hand and the other hand she touched her womanhood with and began massaging her self imaging Lazarus was eating her out. As she moaned quietly to herself she summoned his image and claimed it and imagined her hand was his phallus entering her and she claimed him and brought him so deep inside her that it was if he was in her. She had a sense he was struggling to pull out of her but she imagined she was pulling him deeper, deeper into those dark frightening places where she never wanted to look at herself and that's where she left his image as she felt her self climaxing and called his name in ecstasy and called his name and cursed him to always wander until he realized she was the only woman that could free him of this illness.

Twenty minutes later, Lazarus and Michael were in bed.

"I never thought we would be back in bed together."

"There's no more playtime with us."

"So did you have fun at the party?"

"It was a co-worker's birthday party. It was fun. It was my first New York party. I think New York will help us both to fulfill our dreams."

Lazarus had his back turned to Michael. Michael was staring at the wall as if he was looking out a window.

"You know what they say, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anymore."

"You sound worried. Are things okay?"

Michael's eye was holding back tears. "Yeah, things are fine. Living with Byron is a laugh a minute."

"I'm glad you have a roommate. Sometimes this city can be lonely. So have you seen Marie?"

"She's been busy with her job."

He didn't want tell him that she wouldn't speak to him anymore, after he had done the "Passing Of The Spirit." They seemed to walk different paths. She didn't like the voices he was hearing instead of hers. The few times they met, he was afraid that he was crazy. She thought he had gone too far off the edge. She took him out there to the spirit world and left him there without directions, without warnings or a rule book. Now, he was on his own. The voices were coming from every direction, from every object, from people who would not speak to him but he could hear their body talk; yet other voices would rise underneath friends' conversations and recognize what he was but Lazarus couldn't know these things.

"You seem different," Lazarus said cautiously.

"Sorry to show up here a bit wasted."

"It's okay. I'll always be your friend."

"The city has not been my friend."

"You'll find your way. You always do."

"So much good was between us."

"Don't go back Michael. We had what we had."

Lazarus turns to Michael, as Michael turns to Lazarus. "I love you but I need to experience life. With you, it's like this is it, this is the only relationship I will only know. You have been great, exposed me to so many new things."

"Even when your friends thought I wasn't black enough, too skinny, and not thuggish and didn't like my creativity, you stayed with me."

"I didn't know how shallow my life was until I meet you. I want to embrace everything after knowing you."

"Embrace all that you want; you didn't have to leave me."

"You're not the Michael I knew."

"People change."

"That's it, people change but you Michael. I look into your eyes; I don't know who is looking out of them. Even having you this close, your presence seems different, something I can't put my words on. It's like you are not even here, not in this world, like you are watching, observing, experiencing from a distance place."

"It doesn't make sense," Michael said nervously.

"Even Rachel said the other day after we ran into you at the coffeehouse, you said you were out walking but you had that far away look, you saw us but you were like stripping us naked, looking at our soul. It made her uncomfortable. She felt like her privacy was being invaded. Your face was even blurry. I thought I needed new glasses. Have you and Maria done anything? I now she is into that Voudon stuff."

"She is into Santeria. Maria has nothing to do what is going on with me. I just miss you. I miss being in love. I just wanted someone to love me."

"Someone will. Maybe you need to love yourself more and stop waiting for someone to love you more."

Michael kissed Lazarus softly on the lips. "No matter where I walk, I will always carry your name in my heart."

"You're such a strange bird."

"Well, maybe I need to be a strange bird to fly again."

"We should sleep."

"Yeah, sleep. I've slept so long," Michael mumbled as he turned his back to Lazarus and stared at the wall.

A dream. A nightmare. A waking thought that lasted too long. "Don't think of my lover, Lazarus." But I did as my finger traced the path of his kiss on my face.

I imagined Lazarus's kisses dripping into my mouth. But the pleasant memory tarnished as I heard his voice in my head calling me, "Bitch, whore, tight black ass, fuck buddy." Each name bounded my spirit in these forms. I twisted and turned as I felt parts of self falling away into all kinds of forms, rocks, trees, plants, fish, fowl, reptile, and even things even my limited perception could not grasp. Thousands of voices rose in me twisting and turning. They lamented about being trapped in an Earth bound prison.

I never told anybody I am one of the many, an Achamoth, the androgynous fallen daughter, the whore in man's creation calling for the light while humans are screaming at me through broken windows and false dreams that I walk through lamenting as I am carrying a weeping basket to gather my selves that are hidden in dramas of those I have allowed to touch me.

Lazarus looked at me. So many ghosts seem to linger in that look, looking for a new haunt. My eyes opened to the haunting that moved within Lazarus and his ghost entered my eyes. "Let my eyes be like a song of release," I said to myself.

Lazarus turned away. I brought back his face with my hands but his spirit looked to the right.

My hands touched him like my tongue had earlier. He pushed me back. "Too intimate," he said in a quiet voice. "Just want to fuck."

Drip. Drip. Drip. His mouth was like a leaky faucet.

Drip. Drip. I swallowed more of his kisses.

 

"You want something I can't give. I want to fuck. That's all this is supposed to be not a commitment."

My mouth overflowed with his kisses which trickled down the side of my mouth.

He looked at me reluctantly. I turned away.

Falling out of the memory, I found myself standing in a bar, hiding myself in the shadows. The bar was half empty. The drink was growing sour in my mouth. The liquor could not coat the taste of Lazarus's kiss. Still I felt his words raining on me as I stood naked in his words as they drank my light. With folded hands, head bowed down, I still weep in the marketplace in men's minds.

I mentally moved myself to another place. Lazarus's conversation now lingered outside my head. The graveyard we are walking through had dead feelings reaching through the ground clawing, scratching to be free.

In less than a blink of an eye, I am again lying in my lover's bed. I wanted to fertilize the dry semen in my hand. Instead my heart wept for unborn thoughts, who were my children who will wander homeless in my subconscious. He turns and lays his body upon mine. His sweat is fertilizing my body that is dry and cracking. As he began to move upon me like a face upon the waters, I twisted and turned for him and placed footprints on the ceiling.