It's Just My Third Nervous Breakdown

Being fired from Barneys was predictable and, in hindsight, probably wouldn’t have worked out. The fringe benefits were nice (and the steady paycheck) but I wasn’t ready and never made any friends there. I never liked the 40- hour work week. In the tiny, visual world of New York, Barney’s was definitely a key to the platinum mine. I can still hear Simon saying, “Fabulous!” in his Etro button- downs.

The high point was being hired and opening the Co-OP store, on the Upper West Side. The low point was when I still had to work after Herschel Walker died and the resignation of my mentor, Tony, the combination of which, quietly ruined me. My life and what little foundation I had at that time were fully shattered and I just couldn’t deal with it. Tony and Herschel Walker were the primary reasons I went to work to begin with.Watching them vanish crushed me. I cried and drank everyday after that until, finally, I left for Virginia, to live with my Mom.

Getting the gig and slaving away at Barneys was like being whisked into the latest clubby hotspot for free and being treated like a VIP. Once you passed all the sharply dressed poseurs waiting in line, the paparazzi, security, and had your first sip of Veuve Cliquot, everything afterwards was dulled by comparison. After all is said and then, so easily done, it’s just a fashion show, really.

In addition to Herschel Walker’s death, I also had to handle my living situation and process the end of my relationship of five years with my partner, John.

I left John for a vacation to Oregon, July 4th weekend, and it was tense. We were barely speaking to one another and I told myself and John that this would be the best thing for both of us. That someday we’d look back and realize our break-up was for the best, then laugh nervously and change the subject. It seemed like bullshit then and while it sucked to be without him it was the right thing to do, which I rarely enjoy doing. When I returned, John had moved out, to Bushwick.

I kept our apartment, thinking I’d rent out the bedroom to someone and I’d take the living room of our now desolate, railroad apartment. I’d placed the ad on Craigslist and John shored up the details, sweet guy that he is. It seemed silly for us both to vacate such a comparatively inexpensive top- floor, 4 -room, Brooklyn apartment, with a view of the river, next to the park (and the train) so I thought I’d pay cheaper rent and give up having my own room.

I found a great roommate called Summer but it quickly became clear that I’d only grow more miserable staying in the place I’d shared with John for 3 years. Lorimer Street came to represent only failure and a hardwood-floored souvenir of both terrific and horrific memories for me.

I had to get the fuck out.

Around that time is when I began hanging out with John’s friend, Emily. I ’d met Emily a handful of times, both with and without John. She was a neighbor of my pal Diego’s friend, Martin. I had been to her sister Anna’s cabin, upstate. Anna and me never hit it off but Emily and I clicked. Anna’s younger sister had recently returned after a year or so in Chile as a filmmaker and Anna got Emily ad gruntwork at a high-profile advertising firm her big sister worked for in Manhattan.

Whipsmart, reflective, winsome and kind of goofy, Emily dazzled me by playing the saxophone on the water. We’d had a couple of dinners and discussed among other things my break-up with John and her largely unfulfilling work as a video editor. The discussions we shared made me feel like I wasn’t alone and one evening the conversation about becoming roommates came up and I thought wow… great!

Emily had lived for 6 years at the top of a 5th -floor walk-up, off Bedford Avenue (in the heart of Williamsburg) with a hermit-like roommate from Chile named Karim, a warm, goodlooking Latin waiter (and a father) with a wife and family back in the Caribbean or some shit.

Her 2 bedroom flat’s rent was $690 and rent-controlled. Split three ways it was roughly $300 a month for everything and I felt I couldn’t pass that up even though the floorplan dilemma I dealt with at 732 was the same. With rent that cheap we could afford cable and a flat screen TV (with my discount at Sony) and in a few months we’d all be sitting pretty with our new impressive jobs. And, with Emily, I had a new friend, who needed my interior design experience and energy to revamp what I realize now, was the lair of someone mentally unstable. But she had a plan.

We threw out tons of useless shit, revamped the kitchen, painted the three rooms, and built shelves for some much needed storage. The place was transformed and it took us hundreds of dollars and hours of labor to set it up but the place looked great and I was happy to call it home. I learned what things would be like the first week I actually slept at the apartment.

Playing the drums for hours late at night. Paint spills and trash, littering the landing, stairs and kitchen. Arguments with the super about trash and recycling. Constant piles of refuse and eviction papers because of two months of overdue rent. Cat litter, cockroaches, constant, useless questions and neediness. We’d have huge fucking arguments because I needed to sleep but she needed advice about her very recent boyfriend, Stan, and why he hadn’t called.

Things began crumbling when Emily lost her job and Stan dumped her after a month. She also refused to take her meds…I learned that Emily was a depressive and bi-polar which wasn’t the end of the world. This was NYC! Big deal and, really, who wasn't?

I came home from work one night to find Emily hysterical and crying. She said Herschel Walker was dead.
She had taken my dog for a walk without a leash, put him down to get a burrito, a Rottweiler charged at him and, terrified, he ran into the street and was struck and killed instantly, on Bedford Avenue, during rush hour traffic. I forgave her because she seemed truly sorry and I empathized with her. I sensed her tremendous guilt. Herschel Walker was three years old and extraordinary.

About a two weeks later I came home to find a bag of Herschel Walker’s sweaters and began sobbing. I was still waiting for the vet to release his ashes to me and, up until that point, had kept my shit together, for the most part. Emily entered my room and said, “You know what, your crying about Herschel is getting really annoying. I get it. He’s dead, get over it, move on.”

Gallons of bourbon later on, I learned that my Mom was in the hospital, a message which had been left days earlier and Emily failed to mention to me. That signaled the end of my tenancy there and the end of our friendship. That night I threw some clothes in a bag, my pictures and letters and told Emily, “I wish you well, Emily, but I hope I never see you again” and I left. I’d been in the apartment a total of 9 days.

I stayed with my friends and family until the days after President Bush’s re-election primaries. I left everything else at the apartment and told her to keep it or sell it. My movies, music, stereo, TV, VCR, my microwave, my bed —-none of that meant anything to me without Herschel.

I left for Virginia on the 5th of November, right on schedule, in preparation for my fourth and, hopefully, final nervous breakdown. Nineteen seems like a lot.