[cw: past self-harm mention]
The middle of our lovely country is an absolute cesspit. The ~heartland~, apparently. If that's our heart then its arteries are clogged. I don't want to be TOO unfair-- my complaints are especially about the edges of that "heartland", and the land itself can be amazingly beautiful (or simply flat fields of corn and wheat as far as the eye can see, enough to be almost crazy-making... one or the other-- in that way it's kind of like the Valley), but no matter what, I feel like a sitting duck with a huge target on my back. We have actual security, now. So much of our day-to-day is being shuffled around in one limo after another. I know I'm not gonna get beaten, especially if I stick with everyone else (but I don't WANT to, often... thankfully there's never anything to do in these places, though, so I'm not missing out). But being ferried around immensely hostile territory is still not the most fun experience! Sometimes I've held Shann's hand so hard she's had to turn to me and tell me so...
More and more of me feels curled up, cowering, bracing, preemptively apologizing for my existence. Applause feels like "well, you're good, y'know, for a--", or maybe "We're putting up with you for now, 'cause you're so good, but you're on thin ice". It's not as gratifying as it used to be; instead, it feels more like the relief of passing. More and more feels like that these days. I didn't get glared at today, or if I did, I didn't get something muttered at me, or if I did, I didn't get yelled at, or if I did, I didn't get beaten. Made it through another day in the rat race!
I obviously don't talk about this to anyone around me. Sometimes a little, on the phone, to friends. But not too much even there. I mean, I'm traveling across the country doing what I wanted to do since I was a kid and making so much money from it, half of the country knows what my name is at this point, and I'm going to complain to THEM about how I feel? G-d. I suppose I could talk to Shann... I don't think she'd get it, though. Any time I'm actually gay around her, any time she has to be fully reminded of that fact instead of it being some distant curiosity, it becomes a problem. Thankfully nothing as bad as that one time she was saying someone elses' words, but scowls, mutters of "no fucking WONDER you got caught", looks that I'm far too used to seeing from strangers. I don't say anything. It's not her business. But it also means I can't talk to her about it in a nice way, either. It wouldn't go anywhere nice. I should just be lucky she's promised to keep up pretenses for me (and I for her-- mine are just never enough).
I don't talk about it with Nate, either, obviously. We don't always talk even when we're hanging together. Sometimes it's just us in a hotel room sharing a wine bottle, him noodling on a guitar, me humming along. Speaking without speaking. Maybe there's some way to get him to understand that way. Without speaking.
Is it okay to be doing this? --That's something that sneaks into my head more and more every time I get back from a club to crash in bed with Shann. I didn't give a damn at first. Everything was so much, too much. It still is, but it was then, too. Everything was too much and everything was hurting (everything is too much, everything is hurting). I needed a time and place where I could be seen and touched where the seeing and touching both felt good; I needed to be able to get it all out of my system without bothering anyone else. I'm doing it as safely as I can, both physically and socially.
Sometimes, though, when I get back, when I wash up (quiet as I can, for Shann), Walter's voice sneaks into my head. "I know what you are". I hear it and I start to feel sick. Dirty. I start thinking about the old scars on my legs too much. I start scrubbing harder and harder. I know he didn't just mean that I'm gay-- he knew that since near the beginning. He means HOW I am. Even then, I know he doesn't actually know, but it still sometimes feels like he can see those scars on my thighs. --Well. I said my legs first, and then my thighs, and the latter is more accurate, it's technically my legs. But really it's right near the crease where thigh meets... everything else. And he (in my head) knows they're there and he knows why they're there and that's why he thinks he knows what I am. He knows I was never right. I don't know how. I just heard it in those words, how he said them, the look on his face. He might as well be some fucking Carlton hick staring me down while I'm just trying to fucking get home in one piece.
Ugh. I get wrapped up in thoughts like that and it just makes me want to go out and drown in nice ways so I'm not drowning in ugly ones. But then I'm just going from drowning happily to drowning in misery to drowning happily... shows are like that, too. I even ask that question after each one is done: is it okay to be doing this? In that case the "this" is a couple different things. The most dire of it all is simply the very fact of enjoying myself while more and more of my friends and acquaintances might be dying. The other "this" is more simple, and very far removed from the slow-moving apocalypse in the background, but simple doesn't mean not-difficult. Things with Nathan are getting too close. I'm being so stupid about them. I know. Every night I find excuses to lean against him, breathe him in, get high off that little hit of energy and sweat and cologne. I never look at him (REALLY look at him) while he looks at me. That would be too much. For both of us. But I see him play, feel him play, and the orgasmic faces make sense. He "cums" exactly when I think he will. Sometimes I-- ugh. Sometimes I influence that "when" a little. And I know I am. And I have no idea if he knows it--
And then I feel like a monster for it later. For loving that I can do that to him; for not knowing if he even knows what I'm doing but "cumming" anyway. People think gay men are monsters or predators or some corrupting force and am I even fucking proving those people wrong?? I can do things like that for Benny SO easily. Especially at this point. And I remember when we first got together, how thrilling it was to be able to figure it out for him, too. Fucking him or being fucked by him is still never boring, can be mind-blowingly wonderful in so many ways. Why the fuck isn't that enough. I love him so much and I know he loves me. Why the fuck isn't THAT enough. I hate myself so fucking much sometimes I don't know what to do. But I don't know what to do about anything else either!! Home isn't good, the road isn't good anymore either, I'm not good, nothing's right.
A film crew's been tagging along with us for various dates-- not for a concert film or anything like that, but still a documentary. Walt wanted one, so here they are. It's apparently going to be about roadcrew life. If Walter commissioned it though, I have a feeling the overall tone of the thing is going to be about sucking him and Phil off somehow. Ben's wary about it too. He's told everybody to go along with it and not be too buttoned-up, to be honest but carefully so. Ben and I, on the other hand, are doing our best, whenever the cameras and microphones are on us, to try and promote our side of things as well as we can. So I've talked about how hard they all work, but also how that work deserves to be appreciated and well-compensated; how that work should be efficient but also safe. I've talked about Marty (so I hope they talk to her! That is, if she's okay with it), about how much more worker-run operations are on this tour and how wonderful that is for various reasons. Of course, they could edit all of our parts out as soon as Walt lays an eye on them. It's still worth it to try, though, I think, especially because it doesn't take TOO much time out of my day, and maybe it won't be edited to death! Who knows.
Sometimes I think about all that and think back to all Granddad's farmhands when I was growing up. I was afraid of them for very understandable reasons, then. I was the boss's little brat and it's a lot easier to take it out on me than him. So they'd mess with me, lock me in the slaughterhouse and things like that. Never when there were any carcasses actually around, but my imagination was big enough already that I could see and smell them there, almost. Anyway, now it's a lot easier to wonder things like: how were they treated? Did THEY have good healthcare? Good pay? Good hours? No idea! But probably not.
One nice thing: I think Nate understands more what I'm doing with the crew, now. He's very good friends with his tech, which helps too; maybe he talked to Nate some as well. "I guess Walt just likes doing things the way he's always done 'em. 'Cause it's always worked. You know?" Yeah. It's worked for him. "...There's things that work for him that work for us too, though. ...Right?" In a way, I suppose. If we're successful, so is he. That works for both of us. But the cost of that success is still different depending on which side you're on. "You really think you n' Walt're never on the same side??" It's not just about ME, it's about US. And it's not a personal kind of ~side~, mostly, it's just how it is at jobs. You can have a nice boss but he's still your boss.
He still doesn't really get it after a certain point-- THAT point, really. Maybe he can understand that Walt "feels" like a boss, to ME, but he doesn't see him as a boss generally. Another thing I'm not sure how to change. Either way, we don't do much non shop-talk anyhow. I don't want to breach it, he doesn't seem to want to for his own reasons. He did ask, once, recently, where the hell I went off to after shows. And all I said was: wouldn't you like to know!