Dear Roger:
Hi. It must seem odd, me writing to you when you live just downstairs from where I'm sitting right now and easily within walking distance. Somehow, though, the distance seems just so long. It's felt like that ever since Mimi almost died. You've changed since then, Roger, and I really, truly am glad for it. You needed that change. At the same time, I wish wholeheartedly that you were still the same as you were before. I don't always know how to act around this new Roger and I miss how it used to be: the two of us, sometimes Collins, living in our loft – now my loft. It seems so big now, without you. It feels very empty.
Now you must be asking yourself right now (or the old Roger would be asking himself) "Why the hell is he writing this when he could just walk down here and talk to me?" The answer is: I don't know. I don't know anything: why I'm not talking to you face-to-face, why I live all by myself. Why anything, really. But I kind of answered that question before: the short distance seems like miles now.
As I'm writing this, I feel that I must have a purpose. I never set one before sitting down to write this, other than to try and close the gap that I feel has come between us. So maybe I do have a purpose. How I go about doing that, I have no idea.
Maybe I should start by telling about myself? I mean, you already know everything about me, but it couldn't hurt. Pretend it will help you get into my mindset. I just need to write something down. I don't want to change.
Well, my name is Mark Cohen. I am twenty-three years old. I live in New York City, yes the not-so-glamorous Big Apple. I am a filmmaker, or I fool myself into thinking I am, anyway. I'm still working on my documentary that I thought I had finished on Christmas Eve when Mimi almost died. Apparently, though, it did not want to be finished and thus I am still working on it. To help keep myself from dying of starvation, I had to go back to Buzzline. They accepted me eagerly, ignoring my obvious displeasure. I hate Buzzline. It is the worst place for someone like me to work, but it helps pay the bills. I may have sold my soul to the devil, but at least I don't starve or freeze to death because I can't pay for food or heat.
My best friend is Roger Davis. How obvious was it? Honestly. How could you not see that coming, unless this new Roger I see really is that much different from the old one I knew so well.
Anyway, Roger, I've been feeling very…odd lately. Not depressed because Mark Cohen does not get depressed. It's a sad feeling, I guess. Hopeless is a better word. I guess I've begun to lose hope. What is there for me here? All there is is my shitty documentaries and my shitty camera and my shitty job. My shitty life. What else?
I don't know. I don't know what I can do. I do not want to go home, not at all. I will not go home until circumstances are more dire and more extreme than anything we ever underwent when you were still living up here, before you met Mimi and everything changed.
No, I do not blame Mimi. It's just fate and God's will at work. But still. I would have like for things to stay the same. I've come to the realization that I do not merely dislike change, I fear it. If something changes, we are losing something that was good and happy. Why give that up for something unknown?
I'm starting to confuse myself with all this jumping around of topics. I'll try to stop it.
So…what should I write next?
Roger, do you remember, before everything, when April was still around? Those were horrible times. Again, I'm not blaming her. It isn't her fault. But when she came, she changed everything even more than Mimi has. She brought you HIV and drugs. She delivered you hell on a silver platter, with a nice little side order for me to share. Then she goes and she leaves you to deal with it on your own. It's painful to bring up, and I understand how horrible it must be for you to read this, but I need to write something down.
Your withdrawal was the hardest part of my life and our friendship. I don't know how you did it, Roger, I really don't. I was always there for you, and I knew that I always had to be there. I wanted to be there, but you don't know how much hate I had during that period. Towards April for introducing this to you, and towards you. I feel so terrible writing it, but it's true. However much our friendship meant to me, I couldn't help but hate you. You were awful during your withdrawal: nasty, irritable, bitchy, and eternally pissed off. You never seemed to care whether or not I stayed or went. All you wanted were your drugs. However much I knew it was just the withdrawal, however many times I told myself that you were not yourself, it really was painful and it really did hurt. I still don't know how you did it, and how I did it.
Now I'm grateful you're still alive. Even if I don't see you too much each day, sometimes I don't even see you for days on end, I don't know what I am going to do when you…aren't here anymore. I don't know and I don't want to find out. That would mean change. Change is bad, especially one such as this. When you…go…I will be losing the biggest part of my life for I don't know how many years.
How is life with Mimi anyway? I haven't spoken to you for a while, three days at least. I hate not seeing you every day, hate not having you slam the coffee mugs on the counter every morning because you detest getting up, hate that I can't even hear you play your guitar anymore. I loved hearing you play, and now all I get are faint scraps when you leave the window open down there.
Do you want to go to Life sometime? Just us, please. Not with Mimi. I don't have anything against her, and we're rather good friends, but I don't remember when the last time we went out together by ourselves was. So if you must, think of it as a celebration of old times. Another time, when Collins is home, we can get the whole gang together: me, you, Mimi, Collins, Maureen, Joanne. Maybe even Benny if you can promise not to rip his throat out. It will be just like old times. For Angel's sake.
Do you remember when Angel and Collins dressed up as James Bond and Pussy Galore for New Years? They were great. And then when Angel made the dress out of the tablecloth? It was amazing, so original and unique. Very Angel-like. And then when she told us that she was so lucky that we were all friends. And then the incident with the skin head. It made me laugh so hard when Collins told me about that. Oh, and do you remember that group of tourists that she went up to? They seemed so terrified of her. It was kind of sad, but rather funny at the same time.
She was dying and insisted on telling us how lucky she was. I don't know if I could do that. I think that I would be too scared of death to tell everyone how lucky I feel as well that I was able to be friends with you and the others.
I think…No, scratch that. I'm not even thinking anymore. I'm just writing, and I think I may even be crying a bit after writing about Angel. I don't know for sure. I'm numbing myself down as life goes on. Maybe then everything will hurt less, like losing Angel and losing you once and then almost losing Mimi and then practically losing you again now.
People exalt love as the best thing on the world. If love, whether it be for a friend like me and you or for a spouse or partner or some such thing like you and Mimi or Angel and Collins, is such a perfect thing, why does it hurt so much? Perfection is what humankind is reaching for. Perfection is supposed to be good, not painful.
Why is there a gap between us? I've felt it there, growing, ever since Mimi almost died. Maybe because that was when you moved in with her, which kind of created a real physical gap between us, now that I was living by myself in what used to be our home. But then, why is there this isolated feeling I get whenever I see you? It depresses me. It really does. I don't want to lose you, Roger. I don't know what I would do without you.
Have you enjoyed my rambling confessions of sorts? I don't know if I'm even going to give you this. Maybe in a day or two. Maybe now. Maybe never. I don't know.
Mark