The Meaning of Lizzie

The thing I remember most about that relationship was thinking that if every person could have something so open and honest then there probably wouldn't be so much jealousy and petty misunderstandings when it comes down to marriage and affairs. I found that there is a big difference between lust and love and friendship and marriage.

It was through Mike that I got to know Lizzi the best that I could. She was manipulative and plotting. But, not usually for her own benefit. She was intelligent to the point of eccentricity and at times very flamboyant. She was manic depressant to an extreme and masochistic at times. But, most people never knew that about Lizzi. Most people never knew Lizzi.

When I first met her I had envied her. It wasn't until our junior year that I realized how misplaced that feeling had been. I came to understand Lizzi through more of her mistakes than anything else. When I say mistakes I mean the way she would accidentally let her guard down around some people. It was always up in full force around me, but we would go out and she would see a friend on the street and they would talk and something would be dropped out of context or I would talk to someone about her. Notes compared and true feelings shown, most people were confused by her and I think she wanted it that way.

She had a life that every college student wants. Her parents paid for her education and wanted nothing in return. She was never expected home at Christmas, her friends all loved her, and she had no apparent enemies. She was an art major and spent all of her time drawing and writing and hanging out in coffeehouses with the alternative crowd that a person either likes or hates, but is never indifferent to. She had no job and didn't care.

You know, I never really believed all that shit about a person needing their friends and family to come down on them once in a while for a person to know that they care. I only met Lizzi's parents once. I don't know enough about them to make judgments. But, I never once yelled at her when she tried to burn her name into the soft white underside of her left arm or added another tattoo to her extensive collection and when she pierced her nose with the straight pin, everyone smiled and said that it looked great on her and it was just another thing that made Lizzi, Lizzi.

Her mom was just like her. They even looked alike. They both had that calm air of patience that made Lizzi stand out at school and was one of her most defining qualities. I could tell that Lizzi's mom was thoughtful and cared a great deal for Lizzi. But, her step-father, tremendous asshole that he was, was probably the reason Lizzi never went home.

I was never close to Lizzi until the night that I was at her house, I had gone with her to pick up some things that she needed, we had a long talk and I realized a great deal. Lizzi was far more normal than I gave her credit for. She was just normal in a different way, in a way that started to make more sense to me than the normal that my family expected or the normal that Jason tried to enforce upon me. Lizzi missed her real father, who died when she was young, she admired and hated her mother, she fought with her siblings. She wanted to be an artist. She wanted the same things that everyone wants, just a little differently.

There was a rain storm that night and I watched quite amused as Lizzi proceeded to strip naked and run out into the middle of a field that was far enough from her house that no one could see and yet close enough that if we wanted to not get wet we could have run inside before the rain started. Thunder cracked, lightning streaked the black fog sky and criss-crossed clouds above us as the rain started to fall. It poured from the clouds and I watched Lizzi jump around, clapping her hands and singing strange things into the sky. She told me later that she was trying to call down the lightning.

Sam, I figured out that night that the reason people are so drawn to her is her willingness to accept them and her strength to go after what she wants in the way she wants and not the way society says is right. I can just picture her headed down the middle of a one way street the wrong way, balancing along the center line and barely being missed by the cars that speed past on either side.

The true effect of Lizzi on me was finally realized by my family when I went to the Christmas party in all green including my lipstick and nail polish as well as hair. I had a brand new silver nose ring with a cheery, Christmas bell dangling from it and I wore a tee shirt that read "Salvation Army Sale 1984". My mother was "mortified" by this and Jason refused to be seen in public with me. I showed my new colors by being mortified right back at the completely "close minded" way they were treating me and no matter what I looked like I was still me. (Not that it was especially true.)

Then I went out and got a tattoo of a spiraling red dragon on my right shoulder. They were mortified again and I went back to school with a chip on my shoulder, just above the dragon, and hating them all, wishing they were more like Lizzi's family, who had called once over Christmas and then went back to normal, so to speak.

One night not long after Christmas and everyone was back in school we skipped the border to Canada where it was legal for all of us to drink. Mike was 23 but Lizzi, Kate, Jane, and I were all 20 so we figured we'd go somewhere we wouldn't get in trouble for it. Lizzi had talked Mike, who was the only one we knew with a car, into taking us there and he wasn't thrilled to be along. Lizzi and Jane had been apart for quite a while and they decided that night to start dating again. Mike wasn't too happy about watching them hang on each other so he conned me into going for a ride around town while Lizzi and Jane cooled off and Kate stayed with them to make sure that they didn't get into any trouble. Kate being the sensible one of the group.

Lizzi and Jane were both drunk and high and weren't exactly using the best sense when it came to who they should talk to and what they should take off. I drove and Mike hung out the window screaming and waking up everyone in the neighborhood. The cops pulled us over and Mike talked them into letting us go with a warning. Then we drove out to nowhere and upon realizing that we were lost and didn't know how to get back we pulled off the road and cleared our heads and took off our clothes and laid down in the cold of an open field just off the road. Mike tended to want to be with me the most when he was the maddest at Lizzi. I ignored that.

By the time we got back Lizzi was topless and dancing on a table being egged on by some drunk strangers and Jane was passed out on the floor. Mike hadn't had anything to drink and I was perfectly sober but Kate was buzzing pretty good and all Mike and I could do was wait for Lizzi to get down while Kate babbled on about us being unfair and how beautiful Lizzi was up there. That was one of the few times she ever let her true feelings for Lizzi come out.

When we finally left Mike was pissed and refused to drive us all back to the dorm so we ended up staying at his place. Personally, I didn't see how our staying there made him feel better. But, I wasn't going to argue. Lizzi passed out on the couch, Kate was watching television all night with a strange look of complete emptiness on her face and Jane was so far gone we considered calling the hospital. But, we didn't.

I slept with Mike. Kate suggested that I stay in the living room with others but I wasn't going to sleep on the floor. Mike and I were both tired but we stayed up most of the night talking about Lizzi. Our conversations always tended to turn toward her. She said that she wanted to die and that if she did she wanted us to promise to get her work put up in a museum. She had said it on the way home that night. It was one of the things that upset Mike. He still loved her. I always knew he'd never give her up completely. I tried to convince her that her stuff would get more publicity if she established herself and then committed suicide. But, I was only joking. Mike knew that I was only joking. She nodded her head contemplatively and then collapsed in the back seat.

Lizzi and I had a conversation several nights later on the way that we would like to die. She believed that her death would come over a long period of time. She would grow ill and unable to think and slowly waste away. I decided that if I were able to choose the way I'd die it would be quick and dramatic. I had contemplated suicide on several occasions that year, but in the end decided to save my death for when my work had finally been published and respected and just before I lost my audience or for when my work was looked down upon to the point that the only way to get it published would be after my death. Lizzi laughed. I smiled. We kept that conversation to ourselves.

The year passed rather quickly and soon it was spring. The school year had been prosperous in the fact that I was no longer shocked by Lizzi or Kate. Jane had decided that she needed to fill other appetites that Lizzi could no longer feed and we didn't see her much toward the end. Lizzi started to date some tall guy with dark hair, I never knew his name. But, I remember him being very vampiresque. He seemed to me to be the same boy that I had seen Lizzi with off and on that year. She was probably dating him for quite a while and didn't tell anybody. Lizzi was a careful guard of her secrets.

With summer upon us again and the talk of home coming up just as it had the year before. Lizzi and I decided not to go home. Lizzi wouldn't have gone anyway, but the addition of myself to her exclusive list of friends that she was willing to allow to join her on her adventures pleased me. I agreed to go trekking with her and as soon as my last class final was finished we headed out.

Sam, that was when all of the phone calls home stopped. I think that I saw myself as saving all of you from the pain of trying to understand me when I believed that you couldn't. I was far too different from the person that everyone believed me to be and I didn't think that you could accept that or that I could accept you not accepting. This decision meant the easiest thing was for me to disappear and I did for that summer.

We spent a lot of time on buses sitting next to people that ranged from the dirty, rag top, bum with no teeth and a sign, that read "Jesus loves us all", taped to his back to the little old lady with the white hat and her handbag full of guns that she showed me and told me that I should get a gun too, because everyone needs to protect himself. We stayed in different houses with various friends that Lizzi had made with the intent of taking advantage of their hospitality when she decided to make her great road trip. I met a number of people who considered me boring and not at all worth Lizzi's time. But, they put up with my presence and I saved my most interesting views for late discussions with Lizzi. I also met a number of people who were quite impressed with me, if not sure how to handle me.

We cruised through Arizona in May with some friends of Lizzi's who were in a university there. They were all botany majors and I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the different uses for common weeds that most people break their backs trying to dig out of their gardens. We were in Florida and Wyoming and every state in between at different times during June. At one point I was dating a girl named Beth, who believed that the human brain thrived on blood and oxygen, not that it isn't true. But she spent a great deal of time standing on her head and reciting facts believing that the practice would make her more intelligent. When I left her she was yet to have proved her theory. On another occasion became quite intimate with a man named Derrick, who was a ranch hand at a place where they raised ostriches.

Derrick traveled with us for quite a while and we ended up in Utah and went to visit some of his friends there. We went to a back street book store that had every odd book from the beginning of books and on through to the latest edition of "On the Road". The store had this room where some locals were sitting around smoking pot and discussing the meaning of life. I didn't think that anyone would ever believe that though, far too cliché. We were in Ohio for all of August. But, I didn't want to deal with family. We stayed with Mike. He didn't appreciate our intrusion on his life. But, he let us stay.

Sam, I called home just before school started because if I wanted to remain in school I had to call home. I told Mom that it was because I missed everyone and was sorry for the summer. I didn't say that I had lived better that summer than any summer before and was glad that I went. I had no money and no job. There were a lot of things said during that call I wish I could take back. But, that's not going to happen.

My senior year toned down my extremes and I wasn't frightening my parents any longer. Mike graduated and I haven't seen him since. I started getting things published and the little bit of money I was getting from that combined with the money from odd jobs made me less dependant on home and I stopped calling again. I paid all of my bills myself. Got a lousy apartment and stopped socializing altogether. I became obsessive about writing. I didn't talk to anyone. I found myself losing weight for not eating, working, sleeping and writing. But, mostly writing.

Lizzi stopped by one night with that guy she had been hiding all of the year before. He seemed half trashed and was probably her favorite conquest on the road of men that she was traveling that day. I wasn't thrilled to see them. I was in the middle of revising a story that was giving me some problems. But, I decided to take a break. We sat around talking about nothing until Lizzi asked to see my latest piece. Making several excuses for it I handed it over. Actually I was glad to get another opinion on it. Lizzi's word had always carried a fair amount of weight in my mind. I even let the drunk guy read it.

Lizzi just smiled and said it was missing something. I already knew that. I told her that I thought I should get out more often. My stuff was always better when the characters were based on real people. My imagination never seemed to work in three dimensions anymore. Lizzi said that I was one of the better writers she had ever met and told me that I had everything I needed to write the character, myself. She said that real people are too boring to be characters and that they are only spin off points of light that lead to the interesting people we make them in our minds. The drunk guy just said that it was the greatest thing he ever read, asked for an autographed copy, and then vomited over the side of the couch.

I considered calling home as I wallowed in my writers block. But, the tension that the line carried every time I even considered a call home was like instant repellant and I would stop even answering the phone when it rang for fear it would be someone from home. I was convinced that if I talked to any of them I would go back to what I had been before Lizzi and that scared the shit out of me. So, I kept as far from the phone and home as possible.

I think that everyone at home knew when I graduated. If they came to the ceremony and didn't see me it was because I had my diploma mailed to me. I didn't want to take the chance of getting into an argument that would result in total emotional decay. I think I would have liked to have seen you there though, Sam.

I got a phone call last month from Kate. It only lasted a few minutes before we were cut off. Apparently, she was in Spain when she found out that Lizzi was dead. I didn't get a chance to ask how it happened. I never heard about a funeral or who was there or how Kate took the death. I planned a trip to Spain to try and find Kate. But, I realized at the last minute that I wasn't going looking for Kate. I was looking for myself. I died a little bit with Lizzi. As long as she was out there being crazy there was a piece of me that was out there with her. I hope she died well.

I've decided to buy one of the reprints of a picture Lizzi painted from the museum downtown, the one with the huge distortion of a penis in the middle. The male anatomy was always one of her favorite subjects. I don't know if it's really hers. I suppose that there may be another artists out there named Lizzi. But, that, in itself, really doesn't matter.

Sam, I know that Mom knows where I am. I've decided that it's time to move on again. But, I want you to tell her one thing, if nothing else, from this letter. I recently had a book published. I'm doing well on my writing now. The book is titled, The Meaning of Lizzi, and is published under the pen name Adrian Reed. But, I couldn't bring myself to use the person as the character. Lizzi may have seen herself as a spin off. But I don't think that a character could have been as unique as the person. The character simply received her name. I hope that it lives up to its name sake.