Past Is Prologue
Fred and Me
Love is strange
I fell in love with a guy from New England before I knew anything about him, except his art. This is a dangerous practice, as anyone who has spent time with an artist of any sort can surely tell you.
I should know better. I do know better. But I swear this time it’s different.
I found out everything I could about him through the usual channels — not obsessively, mind you, nothing creepy. I made certain inquiries. I’m like that when I’m interested in somebody, as a friend or otherwise. I want to know where they came from so I can understand how they became the person I adore. Maybe it’s more about me than them. That’s an ugly thing that is also probably true.
But I do love origin stories, like Genesis and Ghostbusters. So I learned more about him because that’s what I do.
I learned he was from Connecticut, America’s most blandly pretty and aggressively dull state. I learned he loved long walks, alone or with friends. I learned that he missed his brother. Eventually, I learned about the moment he walked into a bedroom and saw his mother’s dead body, how that flash of pain was seared into his young brain in excruciating detail. She’d overdosed on opiates and died in the house. He was not yet four years old.
