Cocteau Twins have been in heavy rotation on my iPod lately, and I couldn’t quite figure out why that is. Of course, the obvious reason is that their albums are lush, sweeping, gorgeous documents of a certain time and place, not just for me but, well… everyone who’s a fan seems to possess a similar, melancholy inspiration from their material.
Cocteau Twins “Iceblink Luck” (from Heaven or Las Vegas)
I met Bulldog shortly after the first, real love of my life smashed my heart into a million pieces, yet again, on a New Year’s Day, twenty years ago. I gave my loving, faithful boyfriend a hug as he went out the door “to work” and my hand slipped into his pocket, feeling a swatch of condoms and a business card. I pulled my hand out and saw Bulldog’s name — I didn’t know Dave as “Bulldog” then — on the card with his phone number and address scribbled on the back. Ouch.
So weeks later, long after my ex disappeared to Saudi Arabia to escape… everything, I kept seeing Dave out at bars and clubs — never dancing, but grooving to the rare alternative song in a microscopic and unselfconscious way — and, well, I could certainly see his appeal. Handsome, boyish, cool and supersexy in his leather, law-school bomber jacket. And there was something else — something unknowable — about him. Fuck it, I thought, and introduced myself.
Shortly after that, we started dating. And it became apparent that the dots connecting him to me would not be the one and only love of my life. “Bulldog” was his law-school nickname and from that nickname you can glean both his reputation and demeanour. Quick to laugh, brilliant and funny, Bulldog introduced me to Cocteau Twins, buying me a disc for Valentine’s Day. Blue Bell Knoll. We would listen to them for hours, smoking up, cuddling and talking about… everything.
You’ll notice I haven’t yet mentioned sex. We only did that a couple of times, much to my volcanically-horny frustration. We were what’s technically called serodiscordant — he was poz, me not. And while that wasn’t a problem for me, Mr. Safer Sex Only, it was for him. He really wasn’t responding well to his HIV meds and it terrified him to think that I might get infected. As he got sicker, he broke up with me. I didn’t understand why and resisted, desperately. Heart-brokenly. But he wasn’t called Bulldog for nuthin’.
As his health worsened, I asked to be part of his care team and he finally relented, though we cried a lot every time I came over to tidy up his place and make him dinner while Liz Fraser’s gorgeous voice filled his apartment. Just a few weeks later Bulldog was at the hospital and he was… Well, there wasn’t much left of him and he couldn’t even be hugged without it causing him pain. There was a package on the table. For me.
It was the pewter box in which he kept his weed.
That was the last time I saw or even spoke to Bulldog.
Tim Leary said that we’re reincarnated in everyone whose lives we touch and influence. Any political fire you see in me comes from Bulldog. Any intractible, safer-sex-only advocacy you hear from me comes from him. Any urging to take care of each other and to tell those you love that you love them as often as you can comes from him.
Bulldog. Thanks for teaching me about mending a heart that’s been broken, about how the right thing is so often the hard thing. About dreams. Fuck, I miss you, man.
Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser & Robin Guthrie perform Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” (This Mortal Coil, It’ll End in Tears)
12 comments
Thanks for telling your story. Quite sad, yet beautiful. I love hearing these memories from people, though painful they might be.
bstewart23: Thanks, man. After
DaveBulldog died, the wave of dying friends ebbed. New drugs emerged, lives extended. And apparently gay men forgot that “community” means behaving like one.B,
Cocteau Twins make room for suffering. For me, it was hearing ‘Carolyn’s Fingers’ in the season all of this happened in (http://dolosse.com/Fiction/Fiction/page9.html).
It’s a happy song and I cry when it finds me.
I am grateful for you.
OOX
bstewart23: Rick, Tintinnabulum is a wonderful memory poem. I can’t help but think of The Jim Carroll Band’s “People Who Died” when I see your wistful recollections of whole lives distilled to stanzas. Another song somewhere between sad and joyous and simultaneously both. I’m listening to “Carolyn’s Fingers” right now. Staggering, soaring, gorgeous.
I love reading your blog. Especially when you open up like this.
The Mortal Coil song was used in the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and I remember going to the website and reloading it again and again with the hopes of making out a lyric and Googling it for later downloading.
Sounds like I would have liked Bulldog, too.
bstewart23: You would, indeed, Eric. The fur, too, buddy. The fur!
I remember saving up as 15 year old to buy Blue Bell Knoll the day it came out. The vinyl was text book genius 23envelope design. It’s my favourite Cocteau Twins album.
Crying reading this entry. I love you man.
Thank you for this…it is exactly this beautiful prose, of loving remembrance, that sustains one, no matter at what remove, after all the years. Yes, the “cocktail” gets us through the days, but it is the memory of past loves and lives, places been, people held, that is the key to our ongoing present.
Reminds one of Po Chu I’s “Song of Everlasting Sorrow”…
“Heaven endures, earth endures,
someday both shall end;
But this sorrow,
goes on and on forever.”
What a beautifully written ode. It made me tear up quite a bit. He seemed like a great guy and he obviously appreciated all you did for him. Now this seriously makes me want to get a Cocteau Twins CD, like, now…
Beautiful, Brett. Just heartwrenchingly beautiful.
My “Bulldog” has been gone almost 11 years now and I miss him every day still. Thanks for sharing this with us……..It’s good to know we are not alone in our grief or in the world.
This made me cry. Thank you. (Not for making me cry. For sharing. You know what I mean.)
I just happend upon your blog from dolosse.com. That was a touching post. Blue Bell Knoll is quite possibly one of my favorite albums ever.
Lovely post, Brett, simply lovely. Bulldog sounds like one hell of a guy.
“Song to the Siren” features prominently in one of my mix CDs. Man, how I love that song.
I’m sorry… However, you are right… Cocteau Twins hurts so good. There is a lifetime of experience in their songs that can sustain one through all the good and bad in life. Hope you’ll find another love.