for all near the motor city this week, an event:
michael segal was an epic unrequited crush of mine from my late teens to early 20s. it was that kind of crush that achieved a sort of cinema-of-the-pathetic status, both in my mind and in the minds of those close to me.
for a brief time, circa 1989-1990, i lived in a sprawling, dilapidated rowhouse near tiger stadium in detroit with my best friend john, michael, and michael's insane girlfriend, carrie. my crush was in place long before i moved in (michael had been a coworker of john's, and i'd known him since i was 16), but living in close quarters with michael sort of squeezed every last drop of pining wretchedness from my being.
i moved to detroit to hang out with john, mostly. i was 19 and thought i had nothing better to do. i got a nothing job working at a drug store during the day, and spent much of the rest of my waking hours reading, listening to music (which there was plenty of scattered around the house, since michael worked at THE hip local indie record store and john was a music journalist), and wondering what the hell i was doing with my life. it was a dark time for me, quite literally remembered only in grayscale tones (god, could my brain BE more melodramatic?). it didn't help that the atmosphere of the house was charged with the heavy, intensely mercurial current of michael and carrie's relationship, which vacillated between nausea-inducing (well, at least for me) couch-snuggling and baby-talk, and knock-down drag-out screaming and door-slamming. carrie was, a probably still is, one of those women for whom stunning beauty purchased an exemption from having to behave like a decent human being. she temper-tantrumed, pouted, and bullied her way through both life and our household, and people -- including those of us living with her -- cleared a path before her to allow her to do so. for all of this, i feared and envied her in equal measure, and would lay awake many nights listening to her berate michael for some perceived slight or wrong, hating myself for not being good enough or pretty enough or something enough to save him from her (though clearly such thinking is beyond ridiculous, let's recall that i was NINETEEN).
michael was -- and as the image above suggests, still is -- an artist. every day i'd find him hunched over a stack of index cards and a pile of markers, scratching out cartoons that captured the qualities i saw in him that prompted my abiding heartsickness: a quiet, mild-tempered, thoughtful disposition; incredible wit and depth; unforced natural talent. he was a little ragged around the edges, a little aloof, but it only added to the glamor for me. i adored him.
but the unfortunate truth is that i was irrelevant to him and his life, and i guess i knew it, even back then. he drew a poster-sized version of the image above for me in 1989 and i still have it -- nicely framed now, and hanging on our living room wall. the night he drew it for me was new years eve, and it was one of the few nights that john, michael, carrie and i actually had a semi-enjoyable, relaxed evening together. the next morning, while everyone else was still asleep (or unconscious), i snuck downstairs and found on the dining room table a stack of michael's index cards i hadn't yet looked at. thumbing through them, i came across a cartoon portrait he'd done of me at some point the day before... and in that moment my entire body wilted. it was monstrous, mercilessly magnifying my every flaw: my ridiculous hair, my residual teenage acne... on and on, to the point of cruelty. this was how he saw me -- and at the time that mattered more to me than how i saw myself. it was, well, crushing (as crushes usually are in the end, i suppose).
i moved back home only a few months after i'd arrived in detroit, discouraged but a little wiser. i went to college, and then on to grad school. i remade myself: became transparently thin and conventionally pretty and finally learned how to apply make-up properly, and i dated lots of nice boys who resembled michael in all sorts of ways. but i still thought of him specifically, despite myself, and often wondered how he was, what he was doing. occasionally i'd hear little snippets of information about michael from john, and once or twice i unexpectedly ran into him at saint andrew's hall in detroit at rock shows. but those encounters with michael were never what i wanted, how i wanted... what i wanted, surprisingly enough, was not some elaborate fantasy involving him throwing himself at my feet in some unlikely and ill-fitting combination of shame and adoration, proclaiming how wrong he was, etcetera. i just wanted to not be invisible to him. i wanted for him to walk across a room to me, say hello, and want to speak to me. that was all. but that never happened.
but i'm not 19 anymore of course, i'm 35. and i have to keep telling myself that as i type all of this out, because internally i feel the pull back to all those old hurts and disappointments so strongly its like i'm suddenly barely out of my teens again. but i'm revisiting those old wounds, i hope, to finally put them to rest.
again: i'm not 19 anymore of course, i'm 35. i'm 35, a wife and a mother, and this week i got an email from michael with the flyer for his detroit show above attached. a small thing, wholly unexpected.
and its just like michael to send the flyer but say nothing to me: no greeting, no text, no small acknowledgment. it was likely a mass-mailing, perhaps one my address was added to accidentally, even. he never meant to hurt me, and he owed me nothing -- his inflated significance in my life having been wholly fabricated in my own head, from my own pitiable longing. i know this, i know this. but this latest hollow gesture is the last one i can bear, thanks.
michael, i'm 35 years old now, and i finally have nothing i really want to say to you, nothing i wish i could make you hear, understand, believe.
except that i hope you are happy. i hope you are well.
