Yes, I creepshotted him

It feels like a date, meeting a man for lunch for the first time, save that we are both heterosexual and the purpose of this is exclusively friendly. (It's hard out there for straight men socialized in America, even ones who are far from overtly homophobic.) It has been months that we have not met but only spoke via messages and one phone call. Owning to his work schedule, it might have been even more save that they granted him an odd weekend off, and he chose to spend a part of it making sure that I existed. We could have met Sunday with Amber in tow, but Sunday will be one of her few days off since she has taken to working full time for the summer. She will need to catch up on chores -- as I should have been doing today, but I chose this anxiety of meeting a technical stranger.

Like a proper elder millennial, I might have rather stayed home and completed my routine until Amber returned home. That is not a friendly choice, however. One apparently must be social to maintain friendships.

It is overcast with the lightest misting. Inasmuch as I imagined this encounter, there was sun, but the point is to dine and, likely, part within hours. I can deal with less than accommodating weather. There is a jazz band at the farmers' market where I wait, which is about the musical accompaniment any farmers' market deserves.

Michael is easier than most to Google stalk in advance. He has a Wiki entry about him owing to a previous gig -- which I will not link. I modulate in advance how much of his life story I am entitled to retell, unsure that it mostly being public information means that it is mine to use for narrative purposes.

He messages to tell me what he is wearing, but I have a good idea of how he looks, having seen a time-lapse over the years -- at least until circumstances put him more into obscurity.

My hair seems too long, having not seen scissors since before the lockdown. It feels bizarre to want to primp, though. People in the last year have seen me regularly enough that my slowing changing appearance was not unusual, or they have not seen me at all. Either way, there wasn't much of a need to go to my barber. I don't think seeing Michael in person is the right occasion.

His Wiki presents a version of Michael, one he concealed and disclosed simultaneously in our initial exchanges. I knew his past as he told it and his nebulous connection to some band, but not his last name until he tweeted out a link to one of my articles. Knowing this didn't change much but did allow me to confirm his stories -- not that I suspected that he lied. Perhaps this isn't polite, but I have blogged for two decades; what I consider fair game may not match what others do.

It is the tension of waiting that gets to me, the wondering of it, the awkwardness. Having Amber as backup might have helped, but I would have felt apologetic for every minute past my expectations to which I subjected her. I would have felt pressed to end it so I could get her home. This may have been the sort of thing I ought to face alone since she doesn't much see the point of new people.

I sit in the mist, writing all my nervousness into a notebook with my favorite fountain pen and creating the sort of scene in which I would like to be encountered for the first time. However, as I do it behind a white van, he cannot find me.

He wears a Basquiat t-shirt with a sweater over it. He is taller than I expected but otherwise fits my mental projection, lightly bearded and bespectacled. Despite it being June, the day is cool, the light rain not helping matters.

I wonder, but do not ask, if he used to get recognized. He does not look as much as he did at the height of his fame, and it would take an obsessive fan now to make the leap.

He says that, almost to the point of walking up to me, he considered canceling because he was likewise anxious at the thought of meeting someone new. He had been hiding out for years, in a way retreated from the world. I say, "There are no plans like canceled plans," meaning that I would have forgiven this, as it would have let me go home and vacuum. I'm not sure I get my meaning across.

He asks if I write full time. In a few more weeks, that answer may well be yes, but I tell him both of my current job and being transferred to the worst children come September.

As he tells me -- not brags or laments but relates the truth -- of his adventures on tour and travails, I wonder at the reaction most would have to this. They might be impressed or aghast, but I am neither, only observing. It would be wrong to do otherwise, I know. He appreciates that I do not judge him, but I don't see why I would. In most of his stories, the only person who ends up hurt is him. Michael cops to this, that a tumultuous relationship he endured was at its core an act of self-harm. He is not himself impressed by his fame a decade ago (and is adorably fluttery about having met Ani DiFranco owing to a friend pulling strings). To him, though others might tell it with a lurid flare, it is only his recollections.

After telling one experience, he notes, "I don't know why I told you that."

"Because you don't get the chance to tell it to most people," I guess without much consideration. Once the response it out of me, I realize that it was likely true. I don't know many people in his life, but I can fathom the chore of trying to get them to see him as he is and not who he was.

Michael is a dichotomy, this man who had rock star adventures and now lives a humble life in semi-seclusion, in part owing to forces outside his control. This was one of the things that made it compelling to listen to him. He doesn't seem to feel sorry for much that was done to him and not sorry for himself -- and he could have every right to. It is simply how things are.

In a sense, having his greatest glories and follies spelled out in the international news is refreshing. I have on occasion been beset by friends and acquaintances who have told me exotic stories that were, more than likely, too embroidered for my forgiveness. I'm an author before anything else. My instinct is to give people the benefit of the doubt. Still, when one of their stories didn't hold up to scrutiny, I felt the tension of having to subsequently (and retroactively) suspect everything they said -- far too much work not to impact the relationship. I have been gaslit before and for years and feel especially bothered when adults do it now because they want to play the victim or simply from their nature.

With Michael, his past extremity is too well chronicled for deceit. What can he say that I couldn't verify? What does he have to gain from me by lying? So he will be honest. He has had to reconcile with his capacity for self-deceit long ago. It comes about strangely, but it is something of a relief.

Despite the heights to which he had once risen, a felony conviction from a decade ago severely restricts his marketability. Short of returning to music, he works jobs less skilled than he might deserve because they will take a chance on him.

In the eyes of the law, his crime was not a minor one, though no one was truly harmed in the end. His sentence was mainly being restricted to Boston while he fought cancer; no jail time. I cannot dismiss what happened -- it is part of his story -- though I wish there were a statute of limitations. A decade of good behavior should expunge his record. He deserves a life that the justice system won't allow him, though he served his supposed debt. How can it possibly benefit society to limit his life?

Walking to the Senate House to eat, I hit upon telling the account of Dan Jurow, who is incarcerated for trying to solicit a fictional 12-year-old. Telling a story is easy. I blossom, but it is not a conversation. It is a monologue I've rehearsed, one whose timing I have down, and I know this into the telling. But it is entertaining and momentarily lifts some of the pressure of finding genuine conversation.

When we arrive at a picnic table, I offer him fries. I did not want them, but they came with my lunch. (I had planned out three eateries that would be acceptable. When we got to the one where I wanted to eat, I couldn't figure out how to order, and he did not wish to remain inside while COVID still lurked.) He accepted the gesture, but not the fries themselves.

Sitting behind the Senate House in Kingston, he asks if we are going to hang out again. It is cloaked in a joke, but it is also not. It is impossible to say no -- and I don't, nor would I want to. He says he enjoyed meeting with me, so he would like to, of course.

After we finish and his parents contact him, we walk to the bus station. He points out some invasive bush, explaining that it drains all the water from the ground and kills the forsythia in his parents' yard. He breaks a branch and shows me the straw-like innards, disregarding it to the ground after. "The only way to kill it is to rip it all up and let it dry in the sun. Then burn it." He pauses a second. "I don't know why I am telling you this." But it is like questioning dream logic. He is telling me because that is what happens here, without a deeper meaning behind it.

I had a dream about meeting him last night. There was another man in the periphery and a woman who thought she might as well give us haircuts while we had our lunch. I looked down at the smock suddenly weighing me down, but it was the same: not worth questioning.

We talk of the improbable terror of the Giant Hogweed. Then he points out that he is meeting his parents at the bus stop -- I don't think Michael has a car -- and he has walked past it so we could talk more. We hug goodbye. I sense that neither of us is positive that was the right thing to do.

Soon in Xenology: A new job.

last watched: Sweet Tooth
reading: Radium Girls