Over time, my admiration of Conspiracy eroded. Not in a big rush, like a landslide. In a tiny, persistent trickle that eventually wore a groove in the rock.
Circumstantially, the worst possible thing happened to us: Conspiracy went from being an active, working man with places to go and things to do to being a man who was home all the damned time.
When we first began seeing each other, Conspiracy worked at the New Haven Needle Exchange Program, a first-of-its-kind city initiative that helped prevent AIDS. Run from a mobile van, it supplied drug addicts with clean hypodermic needles and took away their potentially infected ones.
It was a job that Conspiracy was absolutely suited for.
On the one hand, he got to stand up to power as an outspoken advocate for the city's IV-drug users and prostitutes. He rubbed elbows and butted heads with the mayor, the chief of police and various Yale functionaries.
On the other hand, Conspiracy got to make an actual, face-to-face difference in the lives of people society had bypassed. Conspiracy was loved for it. There were many occasions when one of the working girls or street people would greet Conspiracy warmly as the two of us walked down the street.
It was a great gig that ended prematurely.
Conspiracy's back went out. He had two herniated discs in his back and pain in his sciatic nerve. He could barely walk, eventually developing a slight limp.
Instead of going to work everyday, he went out on disability. He spent a lot of time in bed. And in pain.
As a 20-year old, I knew what it felt like to scrape my knee, to be back-handed by an angry parent, to have little aches. But I knew nothing of the kind of pain that would make a man lie in bed and be a cranky, unbearable drag.
Not that I didn't try to suppress those uncharitable, unkind, callous thoughts. I liked to think of myself as a good person, a kind person, an almost-but-not-quite nice person. Certainly not a selfish bitch who looked down on her (much older) man because he was suddenly no longer any fun.
But that was the truth of it.
He was now home all the time. And his company wasn't the greatest.
Conspiracy, who had started out as a slightly heroic figure, was starting to lose his luster.
I was now able to see things that were there all the time that I'd never been able to see before.
For instance, he was always full of plans and dreams and creative ideas that he described with great passion and enthusiasm ... but that he never actually did anything about.
The day I realized that was like a punch between the eyes.
I stared at him, surprised. "You're a procrastinator," I blurted out.
My dad was a procrastinator. I was a procrastinator.
But it was genuine news to me that Conspiracy had such faults.
