Graceless Heart

I- The First Steps

Thanks for seeing me on such short notice, Jay. The pressure’s been eating me, so I thought I’d come and talk before it became a problem.

I owe her that much, and it’d be a poor end to the story if I checked out now, right?

Well Jay, it’s like this. It all comes back to her— the beginning and the end of my troubles. Hard to say where it really began though. Could have been when Dad ran out on us. Could have been all those years living alone with Mom, watching the loneliness twist her up into someone I didn’t recognize. She got strange at the end, Jay. And for my own mental health, I had to run out on her too.

What’s that? No, I don’t really want to talk about it. This is about Jenna.

Well, no. This actually starts with Harry, come to think. I ran into Harry on my way down to Sticky’s Pub, where I had my first date with Jenna. Harry was a specimen— he always wore a toque overtop of his shaggy grey mane, even on a pleasantly warm evening in the middle of June. The guy never took it off. I asked him about it once, and he said, “Keeps the buggos from nesting in my hair.” Makes sense, I suppose. Except it didn’t do anything for the lice in his beard, and I swear that beard moved even when there wasn’t a breeze. With no shirt, his skin is the kind of bronzed that people pay good money to have, though obviously his is a side effect of the “lifestyle.”

I loved talking to Harry. The guy was obsessed with God, and no matter how bad things got, Harry just smiled through his couple of teeth, happy like a lunatic despite having been through every rough turn a life can have. When I saw him, he was lounging in the alley by Sticky’s, and made a great fuss over how spiffy I looked. I needed it too— my self confidence was running on empty, and I was so damn nervous. He pumped my tires a bit, and for the day’s wisdom I gave him all the cash in my wallet… which only amounted to a five, but Harry didn’t mind.

“Mister Wilfred Laurier has been known to butter my bread on more than one occasion,” he said to me with a wink, and my money disappeared into his hole-ridden shorts faster than I could blink. He gets a weird kick out of Canadian money, for reasons I’ve never understood.

I left Harry shortly after and got myself a table inside. You ever been to Sticky’s? It’s the only place in town to get a drink that has character. They built it back in the 60’s, and I’m pretty sure they somehow kept the original smell because it is something else in there. The light fixtures are so dingy that it bathes the room in a moody yellow glow, and the ceiling is plastered with photos of the pub’s regulars— pretty sure I’m up there somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you for sure. Was probably wasted when it happened.

Friday night, and the place was absolutely packed— the people who love Sticky’s, love Sticky’s. But I scrounged up a seat, ordered a pint of the good stuff, and waited. I tried not to panic and sweat through my nice shirt, but of course the effort just panicked me even more. By the time Jenna finally arrived I felt rather tropical, and thanked God for the bad lighting.

She was late, but when I saw her, I forgot all about it. Jenna was something else, Jay: she loved her fancy braids, and had beautiful brown hair that went down past her shoulders. She had it all pinned up and was wearing a blue duster-style cardigan that flowed out behind her as she moved. She used to hit the gym pretty hard, and there was a dance in her every motion— she had this energy in her that’s hard to find in people. She sat down, hit me with that smile of hers, and my mind had to make a hard reset before I found my wits again.

Which, fortunately, I did.

“Morgan! I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said to me. “It always takes way longer than it should to drive anywhere in this city. Have you been waiting long?”

And of course, I said: “An eternity. This is my second drink.”

That got a laugh, and she called me a liar. That laugh was huge— it got me to relax, and from that point onward we fell into a trance. The conversation just flowed, like a stream running downhill. It was effortless, Jay, that connection. And when you make a connection like that, you never forget it— it’s a high like no recreational drug can offer. It’s an organic process you can’t fully control; but when you get going with someone who is on it, time ceases to mean anything. The whole world shrank down to just the two of us, together.

She told me about her paintings, and her poetry. She likes to paint first, without any outside inspiration— just the raw feeling of creation pouring out of her onto the canvas. And then later she looks at it and composes a poem. It’s a level of imagination that honestly intimidated me: I’d been working on my pathetic short story for three years, and I felt like a nobody, compared to someone who was finishing a project every other week. I felt like a fraud.

But I was so attracted to her that I kept at it, vainly hoping she wouldn’t see me for who I was. So, I told her about my story.

“It’s called ‘Graceless Heart.’ I came up with it when I was in the throes of a bad bout of depression,” I said, knowing full well that the “bout of depression” was less of a past thing, and more of an ongoing issue. “It’s the story of a Benedictine monk who climbs a mountain in the Alps in search of God, and each twist in the path throws new challenges at him to test his faith. It’s supposed to be a journey of self affirmation, but I’m still figuring out the ending.”

She absolutely loved the concept. “Have you been to the Alps?” she asked, with a glow in her eyes that made me want to be everything she was hoping for.

But I didn’t lie. “No,” I said, “I haven’t travelled much. But I do want to visit them someday, maybe to celebrate my publication.” Honesty seemed to be the right call, as she confessed she hadn’t travelled much either.

We got onto the subject of anxiety and depression after that. Kind of a weird subject for a first date, but she was so upfront about her issues that I felt obliged to do the same. And the whole time I sat there with my gut sucked in, trying to look like I was in better shape than I was.

Oh? Thanks Jay, but back then I didn’t look anything like this. I’ve put some work in, believe me. I wasn’t that big, but several trips to the pub a week will still catch you in the waistline, and her ace gym-bod made me feel all kinds of self-conscious. In those days my vomiting mostly kept my weight down.

Ah, no… let’s not talk about the vomiting yet. We’ll get to it Jay, believe me.

Once the liquid courage sets in, even a guy like me thinks he’s a real James Bond of seductive energy. Strangely enough, Jenna really dug it. She took me back to her place uptown— she had a studio on Fifth, tidiest little place I’d ever seen. No tv, no couch; just a table with some pillows around it, an old-fashioned radio in one corner, and her easel in the other. The walls were covered in paintings, all psychedelic patterns and abstractions. Only half had poems framed underneath them— she said the ones that didn’t were too personal to display, though she had them all perfectly memorized. Said she might tell me one or two someday, but I can’t remember if she ever did.

After another drink we ended up on her hide-a-bed and got playful. It’d been a while for me, but I admit, I did myself proud. You ever go a long time without sex, Jay? As in… years? I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. There’s just something ingrained in us as a species that craves intimacy, and you don’t really notice how badly you need it until it’s gone.

And when you do finally get it again, you’ll do anything to hold onto it. Even if it hurts you.

So, now we get to it. I made the mistake of sleeping over… and had a dream about my mom. I woke up, felt someone in the bed next to me, and immediately panicked. My brand of anxiety hits me with migraines so bad I can barely see straight, and I’m pretty sure I fell over a few times trying to get myself into the bathroom. I don’t really remember. There’s a blurry bit of me hurling my face off, clutching the porcelain like it was my lifeline, and then I came-to in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, holding my temples and crying for it to end.

Jenna found me like that, after who knows how long. I couldn’t tell if she was too afraid to come in before, or sensitive enough to know I wanted to be alone until the worst had passed. But she asked if I was alright, and I gave her some sketchy explanation of what my anxiety does to me.

Most people would have been offput or disgusted by this point. Weakness isn’t an attractive quality, even though all you read nowadays are posts by social media gurus telling us to accept “every” part of ourselves, including the ugliness. But all I saw in Jenna’s eyes— when I dared to look— was compassion. She drove me home, cracking jokes all the while to break the tension. I still count it as one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

II- Hollow Faith

Well Jay, I somehow came out of that night with her number. I don’t recall how or when I managed that, but I found her in my contact list the next day. I was excited for all of five minutes, before my anxiety ate me alive. After all, I spent at least an hour hurling my face off into her toilet, for no other reason than I’m a freakshow. Who in their right mind would want another go of that?

But after two days, I finally manned up and sent her a message. My anxiety continued to gnaw an ulcer into my guts the entire day, but eventually she responded— and to my utter shock, she enthusiastically agreed to meet up again.

“Let’s do coffee tomorrow?” she suggested, and I remember hanging my head. I love drinking coffee at home, but thanks to my day-job, spending time in cafés fast-tracks me onto a day of cruel introspection over my life choices.

Honesty worked before, so I tried it again. “I work at Five Bean most of the week, can we do drinks again instead?” Plus, I knew I would need more liquid courage after last time. Hopping up on caffeine and trying not to be self-conscious through the jitters sounded like a nightmare.

But she agreed. We started out at Sticky’s again, but this time I had the “brilliant” idea of taking her to mine afterwards… I don’t know what I was thinking. Compared to her swanky studio, my place looked like I was fresh out of my mom’s basement. I’ve got nothing but cheap furniture and posters of 80’s rock bands taped to the walls. Though I did have a proper sofa and a tv— a fact that delighted her. She got to see a few more of my uglier strokes that night… the place was tidy, as I’d planned ahead somewhat, but an hour in and I still needed to hit the weed to settle my nerves.

But like a true beauty, all she said was: “Oh, I don’t mind at all. I used to smoke too, before I got into fitness. It was pretty bad actually; I was definitely using it as a crutch after I lost my sister.”

I was just about to light up when she said this, and it stopped me cold. “You never mentioned your sister before,” I said, sensing I was headed for a tender subject, but I couldn’t afford to seem disinterested.

“Yeah. I usually don’t like to bring her up,” Jenna replied. “It’s been a couple years, and my family has been a mess ever since. Oh wow— I am so sorry. I shouldn’t be talking about this. I am totally going to kill your buzz.”

She looked so thoroughly embarrassed that she had me hooked. This girl was for real, Jay, the kind of compassionate soul you never meet. I could see some of her pain now, just the suggestion of it in her artwork and poetry. I told her to think nothing of it, and I appreciated her courage. I remember wondering then if she was just as lost as me, only handling it better with her lifestyle and good habits.

I had to find out. And thus, the obsession began.

Fast forward two months, and I was a man reborn. My place smelled like incense, just like hers— I started to crave the smell, since it reminded me of her. I cleared out my posters, framed the best, and put one of her paintings center-stage on my wall. We were running together too, and though she was definitely holding herself back, I began to feel confident in my own body.

But the thing about darkness, Jay, is that it never actually goes away… I just got better at hiding it. And despite Jenna’s perfection, every so often I would see a side of her that seemed to match me uncomfortably well. She showed up at my place once in a hoodie and sweats, visibly frazzled.

“My Dad just called me,” she said. “He always does this time of year… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be here, but I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

Naturally, I let her in and calmed her down— it was a strange feeling, being the one to offer her comfort for a change. That was the first time we ever got high together. There’s a part of me that feels awful about that— I meant well, since it always made me feel better. But once you dip back into a bad habit, it’s hard to keep it in contempt.

That was in August… and of course, you remember what happened next, Jay.

III- Graceless

I don’t think any of us are going to forget it: when our whole world dropped straight into hell for the summer. The country was on fire— four wildfires burned north of the city, and every day a red sun would rise through the suffocating smoke that cloaked the buildings. There were fires burning in everyone’s hearts too: riots, protests, and counter-protests… the streets were a mess. I was scared walking to and from work, and every day when I locked up and set off, I thought: “Is this the day? Is this it for me?”

Jenna and I were walking in the park when the first fire blew up. The sun was going down, and everything was bathed in a feverish orange glow. We saw a plume of smoke so dense that it blotted out the setting sun’s rays, casting a black shadow across the sky itself. The memory of her and I standing there, gazing at this ominous sight together, is seared into my mind. I think something broke inside us that day.

Our lives became this frantic routine of weed, movies, and sex. We clung to one another in desperate need, and our relationship devolved to the senseless and base.

I lost Harry that summer too. As in, I couldn’t find him anywhere. I kept having these awful dreams of seeing him dead in the alleyway, and I’d wake up sobbing. With the heat and the riots, I just knew something bad had happened.

Eh? No Jay, I don’t see Harry as a paternal figure. He’s a friend of mine, a guy I like to help sometimes. What a strange suggestion…

Anyway, it wasn’t long until we hit the bottom. And naturally, it was me who struck first. I got blackout drunk one night after work, and on my way home I had the brilliant idea to go looking for Harry. Look for him, like he was my housekeys that would just turn up if I searched hard enough. I got lost in the back alleys, and every now and then I still get flashbacks to some nightmarish scene I must have stumbled upon in those bleak places. I called Jenna, completely in a panic, and asked her to pick me up.

“It’s okay Morgan,” she said to me, though I could hear the fear in her voice. “I’m on my way— you stay put.”

She showed up at my place later, just as I was about to take a drag off my bong— yes, I was drunk enough to have completely forgotten I’d called, and somehow walked myself home without incident. Who knows how long it’d taken me, or how she figured it out, but that was definitely the angriest I’d ever seen her.

I didn’t light up. Her anger had a sobering effect on me, and I felt wretched. She didn’t leave, either— we went to bed, but hardly touched one another. And out of nowhere, she started talking to me.

“It’s been three years now since she died, Morgan,” she said. “And every year, no matter how hard I try, I feel like nothing about me has changed. My Dad thinks it’s my fault she killed herself.”

“Oh God,” I stammered, barely able to speak. “Jenna that’s insane, why would it be your fault?”

She said, “Because I didn’t push her to get help. I took it upon myself to shield her from our parents’ divorce, and somehow I thought I was enough to keep her grounded. I was such an idiot.”

I could hardly follow along, I was so out of it, but the words “she would still be alive if I’d just paid attention,” haunt me.

How does someone carry on when they relive that grief and guilt every year like clockwork? And better still, how does one stay as well put-together as she’d been until now? I felt so ashamed of my own depression. Yes… even then, in my head it was still about me…

But it got worse. She unearthed me, Jay. She saw the ugliness of my soul that night.

“Morgan,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “How does your story end? What does the monk find at the top of the mountain?”

I froze. I panicked. There was no right answer to this— but because I was drunk, I went with honesty. “He finds nothing. Nothing at all. And he throws himself from the top of the mountain.”

I felt her flinch. “Morgan,” she said to me after a moment. “Do you want to hurt yourself?”

I shuddered and pulled her close— I couldn’t keep it in anymore. “I just keep thinking of giving up, Jen. I don’t see a way out anymore.”

“No,” she cried, and she gripped me tighter. “Stop it. Just… be here. Just be here with me. Please.”

I couldn’t say anything. We were both crying, hopeless and afraid, and I thought I was going to drown in the raw hurt of our combined despair. Our wounds exposed, we held one another in the unrelenting dark and bled dry, until exhaustion forced us asleep. Sadly, I never felt comforted by her touch again.

IV- The Eyes of God

I apologized to her the next morning and promised I would do better— but I knew something irreversible had transpired.

But Jenna never stopped believing. She somehow convinced me to try a good dose of psilocybin and see if I could make a breakthrough. So, there I was a week later, sprawled out on the couch with my eyes covered, with her perched on a chair next to me like a guardian angel. And when the mushrooms came on… it took me right into my own story.

I was the monk, Jay, struggling up the mountain. I had no shoes, and the rocks cut me as I tried for the summit— it was just ahead, yet still so far.

“Bring me Grace. Bring me Grace.” I repeated it like a mantra, or a plea. My sight was taken from me at one point, and I stumbled onward, blind. In fear I began to scream, but a voice calmed me:

“It’s okay. I’m right here.”

Something steadied me, and I stopped screaming.

“Morgan,” the voice said. “What do you see?”

My sight returned, and suddenly, I was at the top of the mountain, staring down the jagged path I’d climbed to get there. And above it stretched the open sky, the infinite blue of God’s kingdom. I saw a horrific thunderhead emerge from the West, while in the East there came a bright and shimmering mist. They collided, and some of the mist’s brightness mixed into the thunderhead, softening it. But more of the thunderhead poured into the mist from above, and soon its light was nearly lost.

I knew what it meant. I fell to my knees, wanting to cast myself onto the rocks below, but I was too afraid. And when I woke up my face was as wet as the spring runoff, and Jenna was holding my hand.

“I’m killing you.” That was the first thing I said to her. “I’m so sorry, Jen. I’m killing you.”

So… here we are, Jay. I found love at the end of the world. I met someone who would become the best thing to ever happen to me. And if I hadn’t let her go, I’d have destroyed her. She saw her sister’s struggle in me, but I wasn’t looking to be saved.

One year. I gave myself one year to change. And now I’m about to see her again. I’m so scared Jay… the world grows darker by the day, but she’s all I can think about. Will we start over? What if that was my one shot, and that brief taste of happiness— ugly as it was— is all I’ll ever have?

But at the same time… I’ve never felt so alive. I really do feel like the monk in my story, taking the First Steps all over again. And you know what’s even stranger? The day after I left Jenna, I saw Harry again— the crazy fool just showed up, like nothing had happened. Almost makes me believe, you know? Like the Lord sent me His beloved servant again when I needed him the most. It was so good to see that toque-wearing lunatic again.

Harry likes to say: “God is the best storyteller there is. And He don’t ever spoil the ending.” I think about that a lot. I finally feel invested in my own story, and I want to see how it ends. One year was a long time, but it feels like the journey I was supposed to take.

Thanks for listening, Doctor Jacobs. I wasn’t sure about therapy, but it really does feel good to talk it out. Same time next week? I’ll tell you how it went, seeing Jen again.

Wish me luck.