Page 1 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

PART ONE: CLEO

“I wasn’t much of a petty thief. I wanted the whole world or nothing.” –Charles Bukowski

Excerpt from the notebook found by Cleo Babington

in Tompkins Square Park

on June 17, 1990

5/27/90 East Village, NYC

Rain shimmered on the neon-lit streets, and I sat in the window seat watching her through rose-tinted lenses. Smudged eyeliner. Honey brown hair. Lips stung by a dozen bees…A moon goddess. She held all the secrets of the universe in her smile.

She talked with her hands, and I pictured us sharing the secrets of our souls and conversing for hours without saying a single word yet understanding each other perfectly.

I wanted to bang against the window with my fists or better yet run into the street and shout at her to stop, to turn around and look at me, to ditch the guy who had the nerve to let go of her hand.

If I held your hand, Jane, I would never let go.

But the crabby, sleep-deprived waitress refilled my coffee cup with a scowl, and I stayed where I was, thinking about the girl who got away and trying in vain to get the waitress to crack a smile.

I returned to the same diner, sat in the exact same seat night after night for weeks, and I would have continued showing up if real life hadn’t intruded.

Last night I got in a fight with a junkie. My skin is covered in bug bites (I don’t even wanna know where this mattress has been) so I’ve been sleeping on the floor. I’m too fucking broke to get an apartment, but it’s too soon to give up.

Detroit. LA. NYC. They beat me up and break my bones and abandon me like a stray dog on the side of the road.

To quote Bukowski, “…the price of creation is never too high.” But I’m dying over here, man. Choking on the fumes of the match I tossed into the gasoline.

Sorry I wasn’t the son you were hoping for, Dad. What a fucking disappointment…for you…for me.

But hey, I’ve still got my art. My books. My music. My battered heart. My broken bones. My soul. It’s not for sale. I’ll feast on the crumbs of my convictions and burn, burn, burn until they drop me into the cold, hard ground and shovel the last handful of dirt and dead rose petals onto my pearly casket.

CHAPTER ONE

August1992

“I’m telling you he’s different,” Annika insisted.

“That’s what you said about Dick and look how that turned out.” I lined my eyes with kohl while she coated her lashes with mascara in the mirror above the bathroom sink.

“He really was such a dick,” she said. “What did I ever see in him?”

His name wasn’t actually Dick. It was Mick. Or Mitch. Jim? Whatever. We called him Dick because he had a pierced dick and because hewasa dick.

Whenever he stayed over, I had to wear headphones with music blasting. When they had sex, it always sounded like he was being murdered.

Which was exactly how his music sounded. He was the lead singer in a heavy metal band. Their “hit” song was “Women are Vipers.”

I hadno ideawhat Annika ever saw in him.

“The good news is that Gabriel is nothing like Dick.”

“So he’s more like that punk rocker you dated in high school?” Annika’s obsession with musicians was legendary, but she’d yet to date one who had any real talent.

“The one with the green mohawk?” She unwound her hair from the heated rollers and finger-combed the loose waves. Annika changed her hair color with the seasons. It was currently silver. “Or the guy who safety-pinned his lip?”

“I think they were both the same guy.”