I don’t think I was sober a full year when RJ asked me to go to another Basic Sense Course with him at the More house. We had both been sober for a while and he continued to go to the groups at the VA. We worked together and went to meetings. I was 19, the cancer was gone and life was considerably quieter.
Brian and Kassy Shekeloff taught this course like my first, and RJ and I sat on the couch right in front of them. This is a picture of how it felt hearing Vic’s information this time.
More’s basic philosophy is “The belief that people and situations are right the way they are, and that perfection includes the potential for change. This includes the viewpoint that individuals are totally responsible for their lives, including thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.” (Ya I know it is wiki and so not respectable as a source, but it’s a good place to find resources if you are studying and this was how I understood it at the time.)
The Effects
After the course, our closeness remained. We were gentler and more loving in our communications with each other. We were at his apartment one afternoon and he told me Wendy was going to come by and get her stuff. They had broken up a while back.
I couldn’t honestly say who Wendy was at that point. There were women in and out of the salon all day and I didn’t pay that much attention to his relationships with clients. I just assumed he was fucking everyone; it made it easier.
When Wendy showed up I recognized her. She had long blond hair with beautiful big curls. I remembered her in the salon now and RJ highlighting her hair. She stood in front of me with tears in her eyes. I didn’t say anything but I could tell me being there was working her up. Wendy went into the bedroom and RJ followed her. He must have said something because she came out fast and headed out the door. RJ looked upset and sad. I felt terrible.
Wendy went into the alley and down to Hyde Street, I followed. She was standing there with her few clothes and a bag. When I approached her we started to talk. I don’t remember the exact words but we talked about RJ, but I told her I had never been monogamous with RJ, I wasn’t his girlfriend, just his friend. I told her I thought we could both have everything we wanted and she was receptive. We talked for a while, RJ came and joined us at some point. Things felt better.
My new improved family
After that Wendy did the course we had done at the More house, I don’t remember if RJ did it with her but we became a threesome. Wendy was in OA, RJ in AA and I was in any A that would take me, but still with no sponsor for me or RJ. We went to Mark Groups (what BenchMarks were copied from) and continued taking courses at the More house. I also started doing private hours with Kassy.
We didn’t practice “DOing” as we now know it back then. In bed, the few times we could mange it, the emotion was so high we barely functioned. We did have sex a few times but it was just Wendy and me taking turns with RJ.
The really tough stuff was being emotionally involved with two people. I’ve since realized this was probably the closest I have ever come to functioning normally. I was physically healthier then I have ever been and I took care of myself and my surroundings, I felt calm. I understand now that it was having a family system where I was loved.
Might be sick but it was love, of a kind
166 Geary Blvd. SF
I know this sounds unhealthy but they were the concerned, involved mom and dad I never had. They cared for me and it made a difference. They paid attention to how I felt and showed genuine concern for me. RJ still lived on Russian Hill, I was out by the Panhandle, and Wendy lived in the Marina. I remember sitting in RJ’s living room crying because I wished we could all live together so bad.
I was 19, Wendy was 29 and RJ was 39. Wendy joined me in the private hours together with Kassy for a while and I even told my family about my relationship. At this time RJ started renting his own salon in the 166 Geary building, Robert James. We were going to finally build a salon just as he liked. We hosted weekly Mark Groups there with Brian and Kassy leading and we had a whole new group of friends. It was really fun and exciting.
Down comes the hammer
One weekend we decided to go to Tahoe together. RJ went up early and Wendy and I drove up later in Wendy’s car. Driving up from SF we started talking. We had never had this much time together alone. We’d never just talked about the normal mundanity of life. The usual conversation ensued, family, education, turning points, etc. We spoke for the whole three and a half hours.
Wendy told me about her middle-class upbringing in Daly City and SF. She was a dental hygienist working downtown. Her parents still in lived in DC. She had met RJ through the salon.
She heard the light version of my story: the basic highlight reel of the history I’d written for palatability. It was made up of a few specific cases of abuse, but everyone just doing their best, ha, ha, ha, no big deal.
Then I described meeting RJ, how he saved me. I didn’t notice anything at the time, but when we got to the cabin Wendy went and talked to RJ in the bedroom.
He came out angry. He said, “Oh so Chrissy has been telling you her stories huh!?” We got into a big fight. RJ was mad at me. He said I was jealous and I was trying to undermine Wendy with him by telling her my “stories”. He insisted I was trying to upset her so she wouldn’t want to have fun with him. RJ was also mad at Wendy. Because she “bought my bullshit and I had won,” proving she is in conspiracy with me to make sure he had no fun this weekend. “I knew I should never come here with you two.” He said and more than once.
Literature as escape
Inside shot of my mind and the wall I hide behind to keep me safe
At the time I didn’t know what it was, only that he was mad at me for confiding in Wendy. When we were all worn out and convinced I had purposefully tried to ruin RJ’s connection to Wendy, we went to bed. I decided to sleep alone. I remember not sleeping that night and the rest of the weekend I tried to play along but I was out of it. RJ and certainly Wendy didn’t seem to mind me being in the other room. I slept alone for the rest of the weekend and felt only relief when I could hide in the other bedroom and read my book.
At the next Mark Group RJ told Brian that it was the first time since knowing me that he didn’t feel any “turn on” from me. Brian just smirked and looked at his cup, I knew he was not sharing some thought. Brian, and Kassy for that matter, always noticed RJ with a light sense of humor. Once RJ walked away I told Brian that RJ had become unbearable at work, always riding me in ways he hadn’t before. I never forgot Brian saying to me “He is going to be “cause” in your life, either good or bad, but he will be “cause”. Brian was of course spot on.
A couple of weeks after Tahoe Wendy came to me and said, “You know, RJ didn’t know you were a virgin the first time you had sex.” It was a lie, he had always acted like the first surrender of my virginity was proof of how smart I was, and how great he was. In his version of our love story, he saved me. I was flabbergasted but I knew better than to share anything with her. RJ would get mad and I would lose the closest thing to family I knew.
Keeping Wendy and me at odds and disconnected became the theme in our relationship and then every other woman who came a long. He still does this to the woman he lives with, it keeps them separate and always a little off kilter, isolated.
Still my family
I continued to work for RJ and be part of his life but I soon moved into the More house on Oak Street in SF. RJ and Wendy eventually moved into her grandmother’s house in Sunnyside in SF, the house they still rent from Wendy’s mom at a fantastic discount
At first Wendy and Rhonda, RJ’s sister, planned to just have RJ, Wendy, Rhonda and Tom, Rhonda’s boyfriend and eventual husband, move in to the house together. RJ got pissed because they didn’t include me or Gerry, a guy from his VA group. Since RJ wouldn’t move in without us, Wendy relinquished. Rhonda and Tom did not move in, Gerry did, and I moved in later from the More house with my boyfriend Kevin.
For me, recalling my time at the house in SF has a dreamlike quality. So many intense scary things happened there, everything is soaked with emotions. We went on to build a community based on what we learned from More house and what we discovered about each other here. Yes we applied the same principles but in an entirely different way. One of the most important ways being you better shut up and get in line or you will be humiliated, ostracized and possibly physically hurt.
Thank you for reading,
Christine
