adam ant

                                              

Here's a true story.  A man reached out to me recently who wanted another chance at friendship, possibly romance.  My nickname for him was Adam Ant. We met about 15 years ago through a mutual friend and as a group and we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival. We had a fun day; a rag tag crew of punks in our youth, myself being about 10 years older.  Adam was charismatic and hilarious. He reminded me a bit of Jack White.

At one point at the festival, we went to check out the karaoke tent. I joked that if it's contemporary country, my least liked genre, to count me out.  Adam had another idea.  He talked to the DJ, got on stage, and went into a performance of The Darkness, a joke early 2ks glam band, I Believe in a Thing Called Love.

I was struck, laughing hysterically.  He was like a rockstar and the whole audience thought he was a legit entertainer, not just a regular person doing camp karaoke.  Some people just have that in them and Adam did.  I crushed on his character, but trying to connect with him after Gilroy was impossible.  At the time he wasn't capable of that. He was internally chaotic, socially and physically fickle and nomadic; a person constantly in motion at his own whims. 

Adam wasn't a conventionally good looking dude but tall and attractive. His style spot on older punk vintage sharp.  He's a gentle person who was made hard by living hard and hurt by harder people, including his father. He had intelligence, an impressive sense of humor, and creative aesthetic. He could imitate any actor, cartoon, or singer; an inherently talented performer.

We recently caught up for a few weeks on the phone. He had moved around a lot within the last 15 years, the unsettled nomadic spirit always does that.  He was originally from San Diego and raised Mormon.  His childhood was dysfunctional with abuse and neglect. Eventually he, his mom, and sister had to flee from his dad and they settled in Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento.

I went up to Redding one weekend where he lived in a mobile home with his mom, who was retired. She was a quiet woman who didn't say much. There was a bond between them that came from a survival connection, the best of friends. I sense both had been abused by a monster. 

I caught clues that Adam was struggling with mental illness. I'm not intimidated by that because I've experienced it in my own family. People can function and live with it, but if unchecked and untreated one's life can unravel; relationships become impossible to sustain. Because of what I've experienced, I can meet anyone where they're at.

We had a cool time catching up and exploring nature. Shasta County is a beautiful part of the state, an area we call the foothills at the beginning of the Sierra-Nevada range. Adam was lonely and I suppose nostalgic for a chance he could have had with me years ago, but he was unreachable and just 30 at the time; young and on the run. Some men, as they get older, slow down and become more reachable.

I have to get to know someone before I even consider them. Okay, this person had some internal struggles, but he was nice and considerate, a gentleman. Cool. I told him about my relationship with the Haitian, but that story and person seemed abstract to him since Adam had never been outside of the states or the western region. 

He text me every morning to share his dapper don workset for the day. He coordinated around a collection of ties with print motifs of Jerry Garcia paintings. He'd include a caption - " You better call Saul!'' He sent another of himself with his chihuahua Gizmo making the same open mouth happy face. Dude, how did you get Gizmo to do that? Anyone could start their day in a positive state with a smile seeing such an image. Hilarious!

A week after Shasta, I sensed a shift in Adam. His positivity was gone and he communicated in a more stoic manner. He was back in the hole again. The hole is the dark place of despair and pain that people with bipolar disorder or PTSD can fall into. People can have brilliant minds, good character but their brains are wired differently. The manic can be dynamic, down for anything, and hard to keep up with. Then they swing into down, depressive thoughts that can consume the mind and distort reality. It's like a hard, destructive switch.

I got a text from Adam at 5am on a Saturday. He went off on a rant about fentanyl addiction being the white man's 21st century crack, black lives matter being a scam started by fat lesbian black women, and that all lives mattered except his.  I knew Adam had survived cancer, but I didn't know it was the harshest, most destructive kind:  brain cancer. 

I went off in response to his text; compassionate but with a hardline boundary. These days I have zero tolerance for hearing such racist vitriol, especially from a person who failed at being a successful white dude in America. 

The fascist goon and his orcs of mediocrity have afflicted us all.  In trying to recruit white men and boys, those in a fragile state of mind, can get hooked on a destructive belief system.  Adam sat in front of the TV a lot getting the neo-facist messaging, a direct like to American boys and men who can't bare being mediocre, unknown, ignored, and not a winner with a babe others envy.  He became hardwired to such imagery and narrative in popular culture. For men in a state of mind like his, their internalized self-hatred can spiral into resentment towards people of color and immigrants. 

The disturbing aspect to that is people like Adam can still fetishize people of color and be racist. These days I do not know who the monster could be and I have to be hyper-vigilant to protect myself.
I had never heard him express such bitterness and a lack of empathy for others before. I called Adam's rant' the incel, active shooter racist meltdown'. 

I have compassion for him and that his brain ain't right, but it's dangerous for me be in the company of someone in such a state of mind. Nope. No. He's now blocked on all frequencies from communicating with me again. Yet another notch on my resolve to eventually leave this country.  I enjoy making connections to others, even reconnecting with old friends, but the state some white folks are in this society can be treacherous.  I will let people go if I get a glimmer of danger in their words and actions.  I can't exist with one eye open in the presence of another person. I have to be cautious and guarded with the majority, including those who may reappear through the ether.