Being man (part 5)

Facing me, he confessed, “Ken, I feel like I’m closed up in a dark dungeon right now. I’m so lost.” His face was a picture of sadness and confusion. Turning away, he began drinking a second bottle, and he drank straight until it was half-full. Wow, I couldn’t believe my eyes! Teacher’s success? It became definite to me that somehow I miscalculated the gravity of his burden, whatever that might be. Onerous might have been the right word to describe his yoke.

“You have me. I can very well be someone to whom you can unload. Let me guess... Jesus, you’ve been caught cheating and you’re not going to march! No, by now you have perfected the art. Your name’s taken out from the dean’s list or you’re not graduating with honors? How could you be so dumb to allow it? Negative. Heart-broken? What?”

I waited forever for an answer. By the look in his eyes as he looked my way only to look away almost immediately, it seemed that it was not in his proximate volition to spill his heart and his mind as yet. Not that he did not trust me, I believe. Maybe, he was just not ready to talk about it to me then or to anyone else. And I knew I had, and was ready, to respect him and understand the pace with which he could make any pronouncement. With which he revealed the Mark he kept inside.

Then, I caught him saying, “God must have let things happen as they did to let me know that I have forgotten to love him as he deserved to be loved.” These words struck me as vague naturally.

“Just what exactly do you mean?”

“I’m so sorry for not being very honest about myself with you. There were hundreds of things that you should have known or I should have confided in you, as a very dear friend to me. But I simply decided to keep them all to myself. Times came when I thought it was better to write to you to tell you my things. And then again, I had the unlucky fate of being unable to do it. Any desire to do it was swept out of my will before I could ever say or write a word.”

“Don’t be, pretty boy. I perfectly understand that. Every one of us has his own secret place. A sacred place, a sanctuary where only we can go to,” I said, emphasis put. “I don’t know how any man alive can go on living without it. It is, indeed, necessary in order to maintain his well-being. I don’t see any reason that it should be wrong that you keep some of your things from me. Total transparency is not indispensable for relations such as ours to thrive. I don’t think that is ever possible, either.”

“Thanks,” he said, softly but appreciatively. I heard another sigh slip out from deep within him. “If you only knew . . .” His voice trailed off.

“So let me,” I almost found myself say when the idea that it was better if he himself spelled out what bothered him to death, disallowed me.

“I have been investing my time, love and tenderness on one person. It was a dangerous love because I was loving the person in such a way that I shouldn’t have had. It was wrong. Forbidden. I was certain God did not approve of it.”

“So I was right. My friend is a heart-broken man. Hey, take it easy.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“You fell in love, right?”

He nodded. “And it’s still there.”

“And that’s what’s wrecking your head?”

Another nod. (January, 1998)

To be continued...