Sleepless Chapter 11: Dead Road
San Francisco
March 2020
“Can we go to Mission now Arthur?” asked Celine.
“No, we’re almost at there,” I replied.
“But I want to go see the Mission now Arthur.”
“Celine, we said we were going to retrace our steps, so let’s retrace our steps.”
We had started our day in turmoil after waking up in Dublin. I thought we were having a good morning until Celine came out of the shower and stared at me with piercing eyes demanding a justice that had no grounds.
“I’m not stupid Arthur! I want you to know I’m not stupid!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know there’s other girls Arthur. I KNOW.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? There are no other girls!!”
She had an episode like this once a week, but it was the first time in a long time that I felt its full force in person. This kind of thing had been taking place over text and the occasional phone call for so long that it almost felt unnatural to be shouting face to face.
“I saw long black hair in the shower, and I KNOW THERES OTHER GIRLS.”
“Celine, I have long black hair.”
It didn’t matter what I said for the first twenty minutes of arguing, as she violently put on her clothes while scowling and screaming before we walked to the BART station. Every stoplight saw a new stage of the argument before she finally calmed down halfway through the BART journey from West Dublin/Pleasanton to Embarcadero Station in San Francisco.
It had been almost five years since I rejected her in this place, five years since I pretended to not be in love with her. It had been five years since we had long, drawn out conversation of subtext and clashing worlds. Despite this cataclysmic event in our story, we were still hanging on somehow. We still couldn’t stay away from each other for some reason. When 2016 arrived she was still periodically messaging me on Facebook, and when 2017 rolled around, she cut to my bones in her severity of speech that signaled to me that core of our union was still alive and well. When I went to England to get her back in 2018, she was noticeably different however. She was off. It was as if she was one signal off in her frequency that made me feel as if I was speaking to Celine and someone else simultaneously. But we were still here, and we were about to retrace our steps.
When I went to England in 2018 she lamented the fact that I rejected her in San Francisco and how she never recovered from it. In truth, part of me was shocked that the pure side of her had conquered the vapid side of her for a time. I always acted as if she’d betray me, and I was distraught to find she hadn’t betrayed me in this time, that I had made a miscalculation.
But I promised we’d retrace every step of that walk together and kiss on every street corner, so we could finally move on as one.
Not AT&T Park anymore, but Oracle Park. Willie Mays Statue. No ball games for another month. Far less fanfare. No crowd to set a stage.
“Well, here we are then aren’t we?” posited Celine.
“Yeah, here we are,” I responded.
“We should take a picture.”
“Yeah, yeah we should.”
It was strange seeing her snap a picture of us after all this time. It hadn’t been very long in the true measurement of time passed, but my soul had an eternity that wore on it. My eyes reflected this, this age of soul. My face showed no wrinkles, and my jaw was sharp as ever. But I felt like a man who had endured divorce and reconciliation. I had a brave face despite my wear and tear.
Celine had a skeptical canvas for a face that showed a willing smile, a smile willing to be surprised. A smile willing to be the same girl in drama school she was to me six year prior: giddy, enamored, and ethereal.
The photo itself seemed to be one of those snapshots that immortalized itself immediately, separated itself from the natural flow of time. As if we belonged to a world that was elsewhere, ripping through the fabric of the real world every once in a while.
We both took a pause and stared at each other.
“We look like a proper Jon Hamm and January Jones don’t we?” asked Celine with a blissful resolve.
“Yeah, I suppose we do,” I replied.
“Shall we start walking then?”
“Yeah, let’s start walking.”
We were supposed to kiss on every street corner to right the wrongs of the past.
Reality is often disappointing.
With every block passed, there was a neurotic snapshot of San Francisco’s many glorious angles. Most people I wouldn’t blame for having such an impulse, but this camino was supposed to be something else entirely than a tourist’s jaunt.
On every street corner was a more detached Celine and a more anxious Arthur. I hated it. I hated seeing this woman sink deeper and deeper into a pensive, worrisome mess.
We finally arrived at the pinnacle of Nob Hill, the Cathedral I wanted to bring her to five years ago in hopes of her feeling something that would inspire a belief in God. I was incredibly naive. Five years later, I was not a Christian, and yet, I still gravitated towards Grace Cathedral all the same.
“Am I going to get to see Grace Cathedral with you finally?” asked Celine.
“You want to go in?”
“Yeah, why not? I think it would be quite nice.”
“Well alright, if you’re sure.”
We entered through the doors in the left, as the gargantuan central doors are only ever opened on major holidays. The Gothic interior encapsulated a distinctly English somber atmosphere. The Celtic, six leaf clover prayer labyrinth on the ground before us. I had spent many visits to Grace Cathedral walking this prayer labyrinth in hopes of bargaining with God. I did not feel this kind of optimism this time.
There was no time for this kind of routine, no temperament conducive to intentional silences with God. No time to sit and stare at a stained glass window with a four pointed star.
No, there was an antsy, erratic energy emanating from Celine’s being with every step she took. I felt as if I had to manage her, contain her like she was some bull in a China shop. She stormed, inspected, and dismissed with the fewest expressions she could spare. I was not enjoying this visit.
We did not explore much of the Cathedral, we barely made it through its lefthand side before Celine doubled back with an increased pace and tilted neck that signaled as if she was looking for something. She turned a corner to the West Wing seeing the shop was closed and that there was nowhere to further explore in this time twenty minutes removed from closing. Celine grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the space between a pillar and the central gate, that had just enough separation and seclusion to be slightly private. She turned around and put her own back against the wall and grabbed my hands to place on her breasts. I immediately pulled away.
“Take me,” she said.
“What?!”
“Take me Arthur,” she said while reaching for my hands again.
“No, are you insane?!”
“What, are you all Christian again now Arthur?”
“No, but this is still a place of worship. This is still a Holy place.”
“What, so you won’t fuck me then?”
“No, not in here. Not in a church.”
Her eyes pierced at me in defiance, and a grimace emerged on the right side of her mouth before attempting to grab my hands again. I thrashed them away in response once again and stood before with aggressive resolve.
She stared at me with detestation and fury. I had seen her mad before, but this was something else entirely. This was a taunting from something within her I hadn’t yet encountered. This was a hatred that hated without discrimination. This was that half step deviation in frequency making itself fully known. The one I didn’t want to accept.
“Let’s go,” I demanded.
Celine’s mouth made an angry pout while her eyes still taunted. I stepped out of the way and motioned for her to walk. She stormed out of the Cathedral and down the steps before pretending nothing had ever happened. She was world class at pretending.
South Beach, SOMA, Nob Hill, and Pacific Heights were all passed by until we found ourselves in Fort Mason again after all these years. Five years since that year that refused to be a year, 2015. We reached the gorgeous green in front of Fort Mason before the steps that lead many an awestruck man down to the old Naval Base turned shops, restaurants, and theater. The greatest snapshot she grabbed was of the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance, Northwest of us: pink sunset overhead, windswept eucalyptus trees below. Few things look more Californian, more San Franciscan. My heritage, my gorgeous heritage in a snapshot. Celine appeared to reach a kind of resolve from her madness in that moment.
But then we descended from the vista point of the green, down the storied steps, and she stopped and stared at me with all-knowing, all-seeing eyes and told me something that cut to my bones.
“You’re going to marry someone else Arthur. I just know it.”
A vague image of a lovely brunette woman flashed through my psyche.
I flinched.
I gripped my stubbornness with rehearsed, robotic zeal.
“Celine, stop saying things like this. I’m not going to marry someone else.”
Celine softly smiled, grinning to herself looking down at her feet for a moment before looking back with that all-knowing gaze.
“Yes you will Arthur. I know. I just know.”
“You don’t know anything, stop this nonsense. I’m not going to marry someone else. I’m going to marry you.”
“I don’t know Arthur…”
“But I know,” I protested, walking up to her and embracing her, hoping to smother her latest protest that was far more real than a prior manic episode.
“Should we keep walking to the Marina?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I’m getting quite cold. I’d like to have dinner now.”
I had no strength in me left to walk down this dead road. To go back to a restaurant where we shared nothing but an appetizer and a sad conversation.
