Ditching Liz…

August 31,1988, Lynn, Massachusetts

I returned from Guatemala on August 19,1988. After several days of being followed by soldiers, having Mayan children pat my  pockets and beg for change, seeing desperate poverty blocks away from insanely rich people and going to a church whose pastor had just been threatened with death by paramilitary thugs I wasn’t sure how I was going to relate to my then girlfriend Liz. I had promised to take her to see a George Michaels Concert so the next night we were at Great Woods smoking pot and listenening to “Freedom”.

The following week was her birthday. I wanted to tell her that we were going nowhere but I had been dumped by someone 4 days before my 27th birthday. I couldn’t bring myself to do that to somebody. I went to the “party” her sister Raquel threw for her and watched in dismay. Raquel, 7 months pregnant, left to do cocaine with her fiancee. I felt bad that Liz was being left alone on her birthday.

I felt angry because her sister found cocaine more important than family. Against my better judgement, I spent another night with her, and  there was some euphoric recall during those moments of intimacy… Liz would bring that up the following week when I finally called it quits, leaving me a long desperate letter attached to the wiper blades of my Pontiac Phoenix. I don’t like to cause anybody pain, but we were too different.  I started School at the New Hampshire College School of Human Services, and threw myself into my studies.