California Falls Into the Sea, 4

Bit before the show started folks started leaving San Diego. My parents had moved up north six months before. Friends of mine were moving out into the deep east county. More were leaving for other cities. San Diego wasn't a cheap town to live in and it wasn't an easy town to love. 

So my peer group was falling down around my ears and I was pretty much alone but for Tiffany and Poor Players and the other regulars at the bars we hit. 

T&C was the death knell of the company. We were broke after a few lackluster runs and playing in a terrible theatre. We worked long hours on the lights and wiring speakers and getting the soundboard to work. Tech ran from eight pm to eight am. Went straight to work afterwards. Worked ourselves to the bone.

Opening night, and nobody came. Tiffany and I lingered after the cast left, sitting in lawnchairs at the rollup door out back, smoking and watching the night and talking. Went back in and sat down on the stage in the dark. Tiffany put on her coat and sat down with me. Could just barely make out the shape of the lights in the dark, sitting there looking up at them. A months worth of weekends and overnight scrambles for nothing.

Told Tiffany I thought it was all a waste of time. She told me art is never a waste of time. I said that if that were true, than masturbation wasn't a waste either. She punched me on the arm for the comparison. Realized then - sinking down with her to the stage floor - that I wasn't an artist and I never was going to be. Saw a life with this girl in my minds eye - working shows and living in a succession of shitty apartments. We fucked under the dead lights and she joked afterwards that at least some of the company had gotten something out of renting the stage. I laughed and it was good that it was dark because she couldn't see the distraction in me.

She'd become the center of my life in San Diego and she was dissolving like salt. I cared about her but not enough to make a life I wanted to live. T&C limped through its run.

I don't remember what it was that finally set me off but I told her I wasn't sure about the two of us an hour before the cast party, watching her get ready in the bathroom mirror. She looked at me in it and asked me what I was talking about. I told her we weren't working and she very slowly put down her eyeshadow and told me to get out.

I didn't.

For a fight, it was pretty quiet. It ended with her crying and me declaring I was going to the cast party without her. She just looked at me and closed the door. Agreed we'd both think about things.

It was the last time we were ever alone together.

I went to the party and killed a fifth of vodka. Texted Tiffany halfway through it with "have thought and we're over". She replied "goodbye" and I was too far gone to care. Lost track of the night around there, just little snatches of memory. Walking to gas station and buying smokes and stepping outside to light up and feeling myself collapse a bit when I realized what I'd done. Throwing up on the side of the road. Walking back. Getting lost. Passing out.

Woke up with a mouthful of dirt and no idea where I was. Did a dumb thing and texted Tiffany to give me a ride. She told me to fuck off. So I went to Joes place and took a shower and spent the afternoon getting high and watching Firefly.

Came home the next day, and the apartment was empty. Tiffany had left. Packed up her shit and left. Left me with a broken microwave and the fucking couch. The bed TV and ashtray were all hers and they were gone. I called her but she didn't pick up. Called again and left a message. Rent was due in a week and I didn't have any savings. Slept on the couch using a jacket as a blanket because she owned the fucking covers, too.

Took a long walk the next day and decided that I was fucking out of San Diego. Called Joe as asked if he wanted a couch and he did so I gave it to him. Packed up everything I owned into my truck and left it with my grandparents. Took nothing but a backpack full of clothes and bought a ticket to Portland on a redeye flight three days away. Slept on the floor of my empty apartment.

Friends threw a party for me at my favorite bar the night before I left. Tiffany came. I was drunk and laughing when she touched my arm and goddamnit I almost took it all back. She asked me for a cigarette so I went outside with her to smoke one. We were surrounded by people we knew outside, all of them talking and laughing. We didn't say anything really. Just tapped ash and looked at each other and then I went inside and she left.

I took a cab to the airport and got on the plane. Sat at the window. Sun hadn't come up yet. Plane took off and I remember looking out the window and seeing the horizon turning red and the land dissapearing beneath me like it was dissolving, like ice melting. 

I watched my hometown fall into the sea from the window of a 757. Figured it was easier to pretend it was gone, drowned, then remember the years I'd left behind and the things I'd said. Easy still hurts.