A History of Horrible Men

My college years were my trauma years. Reeling from my father’s death, my mother’s poor health, homesickness, and worrying about money, I was nothing but jangling exposed nerves. I would joke and say, as many college kids do, that sleep was one of my hobbies. I was always ready for a nap because I was always ready for an all-nighter. I could slip under my thin reversible blue and purple comforter whenever I wanted. More importantly, I had enough schoolwork and extracurriculars to keep me as far from bed as I wanted. 

Two thousand and three. Alone in a narrow dorm room with off-white cinderblock walls. In over my head dating someone much older. Sleeping nightmares of concentration camps, waking nightmares of my father. Newly diagnosed depression often kept me from class. What did I do with all of those blank pale yellow hours?

My friends Eddie and Marta provided a lifeline. They were a few years older; I had met them through a club. They lived in a beautiful three story house a mile or two from campus. They would pick me up and deposit me back at the brutalist dorm.They introduced me to Japanese food, taught me how to sew, and made me tea.  I would pet their kitties and enjoy the clutter of their lives. 

Let me assure you now that Eddie is not one of the horrible men.

One night, Eddie had a surprise for me. I followed him and Marta to their library on the second floor. The cats were not allowed in, so the room was clean, fur free, gleaming dark wood. Shelves on every wall, and even a wooden step stool that turned into a chair. One always felt like Disney’s Belle in that room. 

He suggested I read this, and handed me a comic book collection: The Sandman, Volume 1: Preludes and Nocturnes. 

I devoured it, and as soon as I finished one collection, I borrowed the next. I was 20 and barely knew anything, so Sandman blew my mind: the characters, the stories, the art. Artist Dave McKean in particular tapped into the dreamy horror of my sleeping brain, twisted collages and amalgamations of the familiar, turned into grotesque shapes.

I read all of the collections. The Endless Nights collection was also published as this time and Eddie, Marta, and I passed it back and forth. We were three of the Endless for Halloween: Dream, Death, and Delirium (me). 

Two particular scenes resonated with me, both from Preludes and Nocturnes. After Dream visits them, Cain abuses Abel yet again. Liquid drops from Abel’s eye, but he assures his new pet dragon, “I’m not crying, Little One, it’s just blood.” I cried all the time, but it was never just tears, was it? The grief poured from my heart and bled into my dreams, my life, my eyes. 

And a more poignant scene: after Dream has been freed from his prison, he takes revenge on his captors. One is caught in an unending cycle of endless dreams: he is caught in a nightmare, wakes up, feels momentary relief, only to realize he is still dreaming. One dreams of the dead, only to wake and realize they are still gone. Nightmare unending.

And of course I loved Neil Gaiman’s work and read everything I could get my hands on. And now we know he is (allegedly) a horrible man. And I have new grief for that time in my life. The grief, depression, friendship, hope, all wrapped up now in knowing the storyteller is fucking awful. 

Around this time, I started dating a new person, a guy in my friend group, someone on whom I’d had a crush for years at that point. He picked me, wow! He usually worked nights, so on his “days” off, we’d watch anime at his apartment. It’s so cliche now as I write this out!

After a few months of dating, we moved in together. The rent was cheap and the house was large, and we said, hey, if we break up, we can still live together. And when we broke up, we still had to live together.

He wasn’t abusive while we were dating. That side only appeared after we broke up. That still confuses me, though I can point to a root cause of he simply liked being the white knight, saving some poor girl. After the break up came jealousy, control, and violence.

We had always had separate bedrooms, the two small rooms in the attic, narrow with sloping ceilings. My bed was a futon with a black metal frame. He came home from work, late at night, early in the morning, slamming the door. The whole house would shake. He’d march up two flights of stairs, appearing at my bedroom door to yell at me. I don’t remember what about now, nor does it really matter.

Even if I hadn’t slept much before that, I slept okay. I could sleep on pretty much any surface, and remain undisturbed by noise and light. But after a few months of him, of this, the slightest noise would wake me. Falling asleep became much harder: always waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was worse to his next girlfriend and I don’t know where he is now. Stumbling through a hazy half-awake twilight, I hope.

Also during these tumultuous years, Arcade Fire released their album Funeral. One could buy music magazines at the store, and sometimes the magazines had CD samplers. Thus I discovered Arcade Fire. “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” was the song on the sampler, and it was enough to convince me to buy the album. I was mesmerized by “Rebellion (Lies).” It remained my favorite song for almost two decades, one I would sing idly all the time.

Obviously I would repeat that other beloved college phrase, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” but this song became a blueprint for my sleeping life:

Rebellion (Lies)

Sleeping is giving in
No matter what the time is
Sleeping is giving in
So lift those heavy eyelids
People say that you'll die
Faster than without water
But we know it's just a lie
Scare your son, scare your daughter

People say that your dreams
Are the only things that save you
Come on baby, in our dreams
We can live our misbehavior

Everytime you close your eyes (Lies! Lies!)
People try and hide the night
Underneath the covers
People try and hide their lies
Underneath the covers

People say that you'll die
Faster than without water
But I know it's just a lie
Scare your son, scare your daughter

Now here's the sun, it's alright! (Lies! Lies!)
Now here's the moon, it's alright! (Lies! Lies!)

© 2004, Howard Bilerman, Win Butler, Régine Chassagne, Tim Kingsbury, Richard Reed Parry

This song buoyed me up when I was exhausted. “Sleeping is giving in!” I had better things to do than sleep. Reflecting on that now, I pair that with living in a capitalist society that doesn’t respect rest. That undercurrent is true, as well; I’ve always felt that need to grind, to work, to sleep the least amount, to put off fun, to work and work and work. Would I have sought treatment sooner, or even needed treatment, in a different society?

But I think my depression, and eventual bipolar, made sleep feel like defeat. I could not change my dreams, but I could just not have them. If I was going to sleep, it was only because my body was forcing me. 

“People say that you’ll die.” And to those people, I quote another song lyric, “In my dreams, I’m dying all the time” (“Porcelain,” Moby). At that time, I often dreamt of death, including my own. In one, I was marched to a WWII concentration camp and died in the gas chamber. Or I’d dream of my father’s death, and now I also dream of my mother’s. At least if I have these thoughts while awake, I can make them go away with alcohol or drugs. 

To borrow yet another piece of pop culture, I often think about the ending of The Hunger Games series, Peeta asking if a memory is real or not real. My dreams are vivid, and they linger. I have to play “real or not real?” with myself, or even worse, assure myself, “That event wasn’t real.” Thus “Everytime you close your eyes (Lies! Lies!)” is a rallying cry. I can’t believe my happy fantasies, nor can I believe my nightmares. Indeed, I have a difficult time knowing just what to believe. 

And the final lines, “Here’s the moon/sun, it’s alright” truly were the biggest lies. I was severely depressed, and had a hard time thinking anything would ever be alright. That depression gave way to bipolar. People who are bipolar often have black and white and catastrophic thinking. So even now, despite actual evidence to the contrary, it’s not and never will be alright.

And Win Butler and Moby are also horrible men. That I have to rethink my relationship with their art is obviously not the same level as what their victims suffered. But that’s another lens to wrestle with. Those songs and stories got me through very hard times; they were formative. They have caused a new hurt in place of the ones they once soothed. Real or not real? Lies, lies!

A few years after that, I started listening to this new type of media, a podcast. The very first one I listened to was The Hater, hosted by Amelie Gillette. I don’t remember who Gillette and her guest, Megan Ganz, were discussing, but Gillett made a comment about separating art and artist. Ganz replied, “Do you know who they always say that about? Creeps!”

Over the years, I have slowly peeled away from horrible men. Generally it was easy, but generally it was impersonal. 

There will always be another horrible man, so in that way, this life can be an unending nightmare that will never be alright.