The Gift of the Magi, 90's Style

Eljay, the main character of this story, is a romantic idealist masquerading behind doom and sarcasm. She wants to save the world. She thought she believed in truth above all, even if you had to hurt the other person. At least with her Special Person, Eljay thought she had to have truth without spin.

Eljay didn't even know what to call her Special Person these days. "Boyfriend" was for teenagers, the person you practiced French kissing with, talked for hours on the phone every night with and threw notes to during algebra class. "Significant other" was a phony made up term from the 80's for people that felt too old to use the term "boyfriend" and to be more gender neutral. Eljay could never be comfortable saying it, her voice would crack and the unnaturalness would leak out. It reminded her of upper class whites using the word "dis" to show how hip they were. It went with people that said "let's do lunch" and carried beepers. "S.O." was even more elitist, cliquey and pretentious. "Lover" would immediately conjure up images in the minds of those that heard it of what you did in bed, and sounded wrong, in public forums, as if it lost some of its sacredness, and meaning. "Special friend" is what people say you have when you are in a mental hospital and you keep talking to someone no one else can see. "Friend" is safe, but conveys absolutely nothing other than you met this person, perhaps just an hour ago. "Longtime Companion" has inherent problems, how long do you have to be with someone before you can say that? Do you have to live together? Besides it is a term generally associated with the obits page, preceded by "survived by" if you are gay. "Cohabitant," if that is the case, sounds like a place that rats or other lower form of primates live in, or worse, sounds like you're a lawyer.

Eljay tried to avoid all of these terms, perhaps in her own mind, to avoid acknowledging that any serious relationship existed by introducing Jesse in endearing ways such as "This is Jesse, he lives on the third floor." He didn't like that, and they joked about the possibilities: "This is Jesse, he gets to fuck me," immediately dismissed for over-provocativeness. (Indeed Jesse once attempted to introduce Eljay to one of his friends as "This is Eljay, we fuck." "Not Tonight," replied Eljay, and he never did that again.) Maybe "This is Jesse, he punches my walls in a lot, and dents my new car frequently" was the solution. "This is Jesse, he is going to be the father of my third child" might get interesting responses, but in a small universe of truth, mere hopeful prediction are nixed. As is anything like "love of my life," or "future husband." Maybe just the truth of your feelings at that moment was the way to go: "this is Jesse, I hate him right now, but five minutes ago, I was madly in love with him." Such is the nature of love throughout the ages, since Romeo fell madly in love with Juliet on the same night that he was just madly in love with Rosalind.

Eljay thought after a recent misunderstanding that took hours to clear up on the phone and Jesse had to go, and Eljay's five year old son was about to pull the phone out so they had to end the conversation without anything definite resolved, but it seemed like they might have made up, that the truest most wonderful thing he had ever said to her was "I don't know if I'm in love with you, but I want to say it."

Eljay's friend said they were too much alike, both dreamers, fly by nights, too intense and chaotic for each other. "But I don't have a million projects going at once like he does," said Elj, as usual on the defensive. "Yes you do," said her friend, without elaborating. A half hour later another friend called and had found all these stories he wrote as a child in the thirties. "I must have them, this is a wonderful idea for a book, it shows an era that doesn't exist anymore, it's a hopeful pre-war view by a 12 year old boy who lived in a class that doesn't exist in today's society, and it shows the timeless confidence of a 12 year old who fancies himself a sophisticate who knows absolutely everything about the world," gushed Eljay, immediately excited about this project, thinking of the title, what picture would be on the cover, the introduction, a story she had written about him 9 months ago, that wasn't in her computer yet. "Well, maybe I do have lots of things going at once," she admitted to herself as she hung up, with this new exciting venture filling her heart and mind.

The scene that best illustrates Eljay and Jesse took place on a cold winter night in Harvard Square, sitting by the statue of Longfellow. They were both miserable with their lives, unsure of what path to take, running in place and getting nowhere. Eljay was powerless to effectuate her divorce and sick of all the money spent and tired of the stress that the former love of her life was causing. She said, sincerely, on the edge of life, on the edge of the cold stone she was sitting on, "I'm going to end up killing him, then killing myself." Jesse, who had his own problems as a 36-year-old with no money, unhappy doing consulting, unable to effectuate all the projects he was involved with, unable to get along with his soul mate, unable to put all his other girlfriends back in the cities and countries in which they belonged, said, "but see, you have an easy solution, Elj, I don't have a way out." Eljay pointed out that she had been discussing murder and suicide. "Oh ya," said Jesse, suddenly realizing that these were important decisions too. They alone were both out of touch: with reality, with culture, with perspective, unable to go forward, unable to finish things, and worst of all sometimes losing their sense of humor.

Often lately, at the most difficult juncture in both their lives, they were like two people who kept just missing the other's gaze, one always looking up too late. But -- Together, they could see change, they could laugh together at the ridiculousness of the values of a world like this, together they could get things done, together they were each other's salvation. Separately, Eljay's vision was of headlights as lost cars, missing their exits, never able to find their destinations, everyone in their solitary world without communication except by collision or the finger. Together, possibly those headlights could once again become lanterns of hope beaming into a blazing future, with plenty of good moments, a family, peace of mind, accomplishments that would change one person's life, or better yet 50,000 people's lives. Separately, Jesse was lost and missing his exit because he didn't even know which exit was his. Together, Jesse could have regular, guaranteed sex.

I remember being very impressed by the futility of people's actions when they have good intentions, when I first read O'Henry's "The Gift of the Magi" as a young child of about 5 or 6. My recollection of it is: these two people really love each other, but they have no money. So whether they feel forced to conform to society or because neither wants to hurt the other, they both feel compelled to give each other Christmas presents, instead of acknowledging the reality that they are broke, and writing each other a poem or something, being grateful they have each other, and being honest with each other, they feel they have to get something material for each other. So she cuts her beautiful long, no doubt blonde, hair, that apparently is the guy's favorite thing about her, to buy him a watch holder made of gold. The guy's watch is his most precious possession and he sells it to buy her a beautiful comb for her hair he loved that no longer exists. The comb must have been pretty fancy to have to sell an expensive watch worthy of a gold holder, in order to buy it.

Anyway they're both sad they don't have hair and watches and instead have utterly useless presents, they're presumably enlightened to the evils of materialism, social conformity, and putting up facades between each other that should never have existed and probably were totally honest with each other for the rest of their lives which undoubtedly led to lots of arguments. "What do you mean I'm ugly without my hair?" and "What do you mean what good am I if I don't know what time it is?" were probably the first ones.

I wonder how subsequent Christmases went for that couple: did they look upon this experience with fondness and love and appreciation of learning such an important lesson or did they forget the lesson and merely recall how stupid they were? Did they ever have any money, and if so, what did they get each other? What is a Magi anyway?

I hadn't thought of this story for many years, until in the middle of this futile discussion about the events of this week. I found out I was getting Bruce Springsteen tickets. There were two, and I have gone to many Bruce concerts since 1984 with my friend Marc, who has been a fan of Bruce Springsteen longer than I have.

But now I have a Special Person, a Guy, I guess I don't know what we are officially, sometimes we hang out together, we play poker with my friends, we talk about the Pythagorean Theorem, we use it to figure out what is the tallest two people can be to have sex in the back of a 6x6 pick up truck, we ponder the effect of Keynesian economics on the Libertarian Party, we argue about whether books on tape should exist, and if it is ethical for one to listen to them, we invent new exciting games for my 5 & 4 year olds, like "Let's Make Bread Without Yeast and Spread the Dough All Over Ourselves." Oh, and on and off, when we're not breaking up, we have great sex.

So, this crazy Special Person Jesse doesn't know much about Bruce at all, not even that he's done acoustic stuff before nor does he know any of his music from the new tape or the last five tapes, but he knows this is an Important Show, and wants to share this important experience with me. He didn't say it like that, he said, "You might get tickets to Bruce, Wow, I want to go"!

So I'm confronted with a dilemma. I decide to go with tradition and take Marc, who doesn't mean as much to me, but I don't want to hurt Jesse. Jesse and I have this ongoing debate about the whole truth, I believe in it, he doesn't especially if it would hurt someone unnecessarily. I decided to use Jesse's theory on him. Of course, like when I first shoplifted, I got caught.

I am not smooth at fibs (evil lies!). When he asked, I said I had one ticket. I probably should have said I couldn't get any. Well, Jesse was planning to come over Thursday night, but couldn't, the show was Friday night, and he left a message saying he was coming over Friday afternoon instead. I could've played it by ear, I could've easily arranged to not be here, but no, I panicked. I didn't know how to undo the lie, I had no plan, but called him to talk about it with the truth and an apology in mind. I couldn't get him in person (there was also another unrelated crisis about a speeding ticket that led me to believe I could not get him because I left messages). Then when I realized I couldn't get him in person, I thought, "That's it, I'll tell him I got two tickets but couldn't get in touch with him, so had to ask Marc!" Ingenious right? Wrong. He was pissed because he believed this lie. He got in touch with me shortly afterwards, and yelled at me and thought he didn't matter much to me, because he was just Another Guy instead of my Special Person. I didn't enjoy the show. Jesse called one of his other girlfriends and made a New Year's date with her which almost was the end of a potentially wonderful relationship, and not theirs.

The next morning I told him the truth, and he said I should have told him first in retrospect, he would've understood. I don't know that he would have, but it certainly would not have led to the mess it led to. Jesse, I know I was wrong and I am sorry, but it does illustrate that you cannot always get away with half truths, spin, or lies to avoid hurting someone. Like the people in the Magi story, we almost lost something precious to avoid hurting feelings, instead of just being honest with each other, and I started this one, there was a useless show, a wasted ticket, sudden distrust, guilt, stress, and lots of money spent on cellular and out-of-state phone calls. Like the ball of yarn that goes down the hill collecting more and more yarn, that is what the smallest best-intentioned lie can become. I really like using your theories against you. I know that you lead a "secret" life with your other girlfriends in Alexandria and Denmark and who knows where else, that you don't talk about. Fuck little white lies, and fuck secret lives. THE WHOLE TRUTH is the way to go.

Anyway it led to your letter asking for a DECLARATION, a commitment (that word always makes me think of mental institutions) to you. We have lots to work out, we both have a lot to work on, but I guess this is my response:

I DON'T SEE A WAY TO LIVE WITHOUT YOU NOW THAT I KNOW YOU. That wasn't meant to sound negative. Rephrase. Edit. I'M SO GLAD I MET YOU, I'VE NEVER MET ANYONE ELSE LIKE YOU AND I'M NUTS ABOUT YOU AND I THINK WE ARE DESTINED FOR A LIFE TOGETHER. I DON'T SEE HOW EITHER OF US CAN SURVIVE LIVING HAPPY PRODUCTIVE LIVES WITHOUT EACH OTHER. I DON'T KNOW IF I LOVE YOU EITHER, JESSE GORDON, SINCE LOVE IS SUCH A TRANSIENT MYSTERIOUS FEELING, BUT I WANT TO SAY IT. I LOVE YOU. I WANT YOU TO BE MY GUY, THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. I WANT TO BE YOUR BABE-O-RINO, THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE. I WANT TO RESPECT EACH OTHER, AND LISTEN TO EACH OTHER AND HELP AND SUPPORT EACH OTHER AND BE KIND TO EACH OTHER IN A WORLD FILLED WITH CRUELTY AND SENSELESSNESS. I WANT TO HAVE A PERFECT SAFE SHELTER WITH YOU WHERE WE LAUGH TOGETHER AND EAT TOGETHER AND HAVE ORGASMS TOGETHER, I WANT TO WRITE AND FINISH STORIES AND PROJECTS TOGETHER, AND RAISE SPIKE AND COCO AND PERHAPS TWO MORE KIDS TOGETHER, AS WELL AS ESME' (THE CAT). I WANT TO LEARN HOW TO USE THE COMPUTER, LIKE HOW CAN I MAKE AN ACCENT GRAVE INSTEAD OF USING THE APOSTROPHE? I WANT TO LEARN THINGS TOGETHER, SEE DIFFERENT SIDES OF ISSUES, LEARN MORE TOLERANCE. I WANT TO SEE YOU GET ELECTED TO CONGRESS AS THE FIRST BISEXUAL JEWISH LIBERTARIAN WHO IS ON PSYCHOACTIVE MEDICATION. I WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD WITH YOU. I WANT TO SEE THE WORLD WITH YOU. I WANT TO BE MADLY IN LOVE WITH YOU FOREVER AND HAVE YOU BE MADLY IN LOVE WITH ME FOREVER. NOW WHAT?

There it is. On the Powerbook. In black and white. There's no going back. I feel a little like Dustin Hoffman and the girl at the end of the movie the graduate: after he saves her at the last minute from getting married to someone she doesn't love and they really love each other, but at the end of the movie, they are sitting on the back of the bus together, they've made a declaration of sorts, a major decision and commitment, and they must be happy on some level, but they look so confused. Now what, Jesse?