Simone. Gordon.

The last of the Midwest wanderers have returned home for Thanksgiving. Obligations in Los Angeles prevents me from joining them.

I exaggerate, there's an odd feeling of solitude like what I imagine being the sole survivor of an airline crash is like; fatalities of gross magnitude but one. Feels strange. Friends keep me company with texts through-out the day and night along with pictures and videos, like we've been divided by war. I love it!

As small as the world is compared to the universe, more specific the actuality that I'm only 5 hours away (and 2 hours time difference) by plane, my friends just feel so far away.

Friends are your chosen family. I have only loved one man in the way I love my friends, and when that relationship ended I don't think I ever fully recovered. I was young. Some things linger with you forever when obtained in your youth. It is why all psychology starts with your parents and childhood.

The loves of my youth are the loves that will stay with me until the day I die,

Like my nom de plume,

Simone

And

Gordon

I met E. Gordon when I was 14 years old.

I met C. Simone when I was 21 years old.

 

E. Gordon.


E. Gordon was a boy I met when I was 14 years old. I knew nothing about boys. I still know nothing about boys! Absolutely nothing!

A few years prior to meeting E. Gordon, a boy named Michael L. kissed me in my backyard, but that's it, that's all I knew.

E. Gordon and I were formally introduced by a woman who was friends with both our parents. It was a blistery Minnesota winter afternoon luncheon at this woman's house. Like myself, Gordon had been saddled to join his parents to this luncheon, as way for our parents to prove what "great kids" they had.

E. Gordon was 16 years old, average height for a boy of 16, thin, toned, blonde curly hair and blue eyes - as describes most boys I grew up with.

When we were introduced, Gordon looked me directly in the eyes, tilted his head, smiled, cordially stuck out his right hand, but said nothing.

"Nice to meet you." I politely said, shaking his hand.

Gordon shook my hand in return, then laughed, and walked away.

That's how we met.

I didn't see Gordon for the rest of the afternoon or season, nor cared to. I thought he was rude, spoiled, and (spite the fact he looked like every other boy I knew) I also thought he was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. It would take obsessing over Gordon for the remainder of the winter to understand it was the eye contact. That's what moved me. It was the way he looked at me, directly in the eyes, unflinching, unwavering, and with a conviction of something though probably not good, or so I thought, since he laughed at me afterwards! Still, even if I never saw Gordon again, he would remain a part of me today because of that steady confident eye contact.

The following Summer however I did see Gordon again in a less formal environment. We were just a bunch of kids in a friend of a friend's basement listening to music and hanging out. In fact, I saw Gordon almost every day that Summer, and every day he ignored me, as I ignored him, all with the exception of that amazing wonderful eye contact! We never spoke a word to each other, not one word, but we looked at each other a lot!

On occasion I would hear Gordon laugh. It was beautiful, music to my ears. I would look at him, he would look at me, smile, our gaze locked for 5 to 10 solid seconds until something distracted one of us, breaking the spell.

By end of that summer, at a lake a bunch of kids and I hung out at, Gordon approached me and said, "I'm moving. My dad got a job in Chicago."

It was the first thing he said to me (ever!) since we met that one winter day.

I was heartbroken.

Gordon and I spent the rest of that day and evening together, inseparable, laughing and having fun. Though we didn't kiss or hold hands, Gordon played with my hair, touched my arm, even hugged me once. We never mentioned the day we met, or why it took so long to talk, we just enjoyed our time together, simple, uncomplicated, sincere, for whatever it was worth.

"The simplicity of childhood is a wondrous thing lost in adulthood."

When that day ended, Gordon and I merely said our goodbyes, and I was prepared to never see him again...

Until we did.

Gordon and I saw each other one more time the following summer.

I was now 15 years old, Gordon was 17, and we saw each other in the stands of a high school baseball game. I was with my friends. He was with his friends. And through-out the entire game we locked eyes and just stared at each other, and smiled.

When the game was over, Gordon, and myself, merely got up and went our separate ways once more.      

I never saw Gordon again after that.

It wouldn't have been difficult getting in touch with Gordon, then or now, our parents had/have mutual friends, but there was (is) a magic there I didn't want to break.

Gordon was special to me, obviously, or I wouldn't be using his name now as a nom de plume.

I think about E. Gordon, almost daily, and will most likely continue to for the rest of my life.


C. Simone


Simone was her middle name. I refer to Simone in past tense because Simone died. She killed herself at the age of 27. She hung herself.

I had just turned 21 years old, and had just moved to Los Angeles. I worked for a company that was 100% image based. That's where I met Simone. I thought Simone was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. She was a natural beauty, girl next door, long sandy blonde hair, every color of blonde entwined, perfect sexy beach body, perfectly sculpted face, perfect nose, perfect hazel eyes, but even more impressive she was an artist and writer, possessing a wealth of heart and soul, extremely talented, which is why she and I became better acquainted. I was in awe of her.

I saw Simone at work maybe 5-10 minutes a day. Getting better acquainted took several months.

We, Los Angeles, use the word "friend" rather freely. I however take this word very seriously as I know who my friends are, as I've always known. You and I may call each other friends but there's a very good chance we only know each other for the good times, as a mutual understanding.

Simone and I called each other "friends" but in truth we were co-workers who talked about life outside of work, shared a lot of writing, and went to lunch maybe once a month.

What I knew about Simone I mostly knew creatively. Aside from that, I knew she had a "part-time" boyfriend, I knew where she grew up, and I knew where she worked (obviously.)

And because both Simone and I wrote prose and short stories, we would write things specifically for (only) each other just out of the sheer enjoyment knowing someone else in L.A. also loves Shakespeare, Jung, Bukowski, Kerouac, etc., and we left these poems and stories for each other at work, and sometimes mailed them to each other.

One day I received a letter from Simone in the mail. Her family had institutionalized her. They thought Simone was a danger to herself and others and felt it best she receive around the clock psychiatric treatment. I was shocked! I thought she was kidding! But the address on the envelope, the postal stamp, and the letterhead were not a joke.

By this time I was 22 years old, and had no idea (no idea!) how to maturely process any of this. I spoke with one of my older brothers almost daily for consultation!

Simone and I continued to correspond with each other same as before, poetically, idyllically, but sometimes not, sometimes we just told each other rather plainly about our day.

Our friendliness evolved while Simone was institutionalized.

In time, Simone was released from the institution, we resumed our "friendship" as was prior to her being institutionalized, and it was as if a giant pink elephant was constantly in the room. It was intense, and nerve wracking, confusing, unsettling, mostly because she never wanted to talk about being institutionalized,  not ever, not who, not what, not where, not when, and not why, not ever! So we didn't.

A few months past and Simone disappeared again. More months past and I still had not heard from her. I found her brother's phone number in an old correspondence and called him for the first time, out of the blue, looking for Simone.

Simone's sister-in-law was the one who informed me Simone had been re-institutionalized, released, but within days of her release she hung herself, and days later died in the hospital.

I could write a thousand pages about Simone, but unfortunately only my side of my relationship with her because in truth, I know very little about her.

"When was she released?" I asked her sister-in-law

"Last week." she replied.

And Simone's family refused to tell me anything more about her death, why she was institutionalized, or answer any of my questions regarding anything about her.

A few days, literally days later, after learning about Simone's death, I received a letter in the mail from Simone. She had mailed the letter from the institution upon her release, but for whatever reason I did not get the letter until after she died. 

What was said in that letter is my one and only (very private) connection with her. It is all I have left of her. I've considered several times publishing our correspondence, hers and mine, back and forth, amazing letters, poems, short stories, prose, small plays, etc., but I don't have the heart to do so, and maybe I'm just selfish and want to keep them all for myself, I don't know.

What happened to the writings I gave her, also I do not know.

Simone Gordon

I've had to learn to just let these people go. Both Simone and Gordon left on their terms. One day they were both physically part of my life. Then one day they were not.

I chose this name, Simone Gordon, and use it now because these are two people I think about almost every day since I met them. I can't explain it. Simone and Gordon are in my head, and for a person like me, being in my head can be just as potent (sometimes) as being in my heart.

This blog is as real and sincere as I can be in writing. Drunk. Sober. Angry. Happy. It just is what I am, what I happen to be, like it or not, whenever I write.

My only "mistake" was trying to include people in my inside jokes and that clearly doesn't work. You don't know me. You don't know my friends. So it doesn't work. My friends and I have known each other forever! We're horrible to each other, and tease each other, and make fun of everything we can invent about one another simply because, well, we enjoy being dicks to each other! It's funny and we love each other!

Neither Simone, or Gordon, were people I considered true friends, but oddly, very little goes on in my daily life when something doesn't remind me of them.

I miss my friends.

I miss Simone and Gordon.

Nothing more I can say really.


In conclusion;

Forever,

Thank you,
Simone Gordon