Because none of us want to think the universe is a blank dream….
— Jack Kerouac
Ghost in Naples
I’ve started work on a new novel, and I have cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to thank for it. Before I get into that, some background:
When I was in my early twenties, I lived out of a hotel near the old NATO base in Bagnoli, Naples. I was there because I nearly severed my femoral artery during my deployment to the Red Sea for Operation Desert Shield/Storm, and after inpatient treatment, there was no room in the barracks for me to stay during outpatient treatment. I lived among Neapolitans as if I were one of them, with ease, because in coming away from my near-death experience, I was no longer self-conscious about saying the right or wrong thing; I shouldn't have been there to begin with. It was a miracle that I was alive.
I'd become a ghost.
And if that was the case, I should say everything I would never have said in the past, for whatever reason, and be direct and honest about my wants and desires, even if some would be considered taboo—foreign—by society, because doing so was now the ultimate expression of a life that should not even be here.
Homo sum, humani a me nihil alienum puto.
I am a man, nothing human is foreign to me.
—Terence, Heauton Timorumenos 77 (c. 165 BCE)
Women and Connection in Naples
What followed were encounters with women I met along the way: some from the naval commands based around the city, others from underground wine bars and speakeasies hidden from outsiders.
Because of my sudden directness and honesty—I was a ghost, after all—these women would feel safe enough to confide in me all their wants and desires that lesser men would have shamed them for being taboo and foreign. When the moment would come—and it always did—that I would tell them directly why I would be spending so much time with them—because I wanted to have sex—they’d answer, “Sure, why not; let’s have some real fun.”
The Stuck Point and the Sublime
There’s a reason for what may sound like boasting: it’s a pattern I’ve repeated ever since. In CBT, I uncovered something I never expected—a stuck point. At the root of most stuck points is shame and self-blame for trauma endured. But my stuck point is not rooted in that. It's rooted to an addiction I've developed from having entered the liminal space of the sublime in my near-death experience, standing at that door and finding “nothing” on the other side.
But this nothing isn’t the nothing most people think of. It’s the nothingness described in the Upanishads as a peace that passes understanding, and which Sufis describe as fana—the word for the total annihilation of self.
Die before you die.
— Rumi
For years, I’ve chased this annihilation through orgasm, but only if I feel a connection. Connections were what I built during my time in Naples. And in those connections, I experienced la petite mort (“the little death”) in the arms of women who gave me their trust.
One woman I saw regularly gave me that trust every time. I took pride in helping her reach her own la petite mort whenever we had sex. She asked me to stay at her apartment in the Spanish Quarter so that, during my remaining time, she’d take off from work and treat me to trips to Sorrento, Capri, and Rome until I had to return to the States for more outpatient treatments.
Illness, Memory, and Making Peace
Decades later, I’m battling cancer. The work I’m doing in CBT is meant to free me from anything that keeps me from living in the moment. When I finally go through that door—and it won’t be soon—I’ll do it free of the burden attributed to Meister Eckhart in the film Jacob’s Ladder:
Eckhart saw Hell too. He said, ‘The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life, your memories, your attachments. They burn ’em all away. But they’re not punishing you, they’re freeing your soul. If you’re frightened of dying and you’re holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.’
The new novel is my way of making peace because clinging to these intense memories of pleasure, bound up with PTSD and the sublime, keeps me seeing myself as a ghost.
Now, more than ever, I need to be present—in the moment, in the now. The novel should help. I’ll be posting draft chapters here in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ve shared a DJ set I recorded about ten years after Naples, with a sound that matches the mood of those long walks at night with my “friend,” who became the inspiration for Charlotte.
I don’t care what other novelists say: every story starts as an idea rooted in the emotions of personal experience, not the experience word for word. From there, the characters take on lives of their own. I don’t know how the story will end, but I’m having fun seeing where it goes.
What I do know is this: after years of writing about generational trauma in my last novel, The Desert Road of Night, this one will be erotic, sensual, and graphic. I’m doing, through words, what my health now keeps me from doing without connection—and that’s fine. After all, I’m a ghost. I shouldn’t be here.
I’m just glad I am.
From Page to Sound: The Mood and the Feel
This is the Naples of my memory. The DJ set carries the mood and feel behind the new novel. Listen and you’ll hear it.
TRACK LIST
00:00 Holden & Thompson — Come to Me (Amateur Guitar Mix)
07:11 Agoria ft. Scalde — Dust (Rocco Vision Mix)
14:24 Yaxkin Retrodisko — Don't Cha Want It (Deepsee Mix)
21:33 Blue Six — Sweeter Love
28:00 Jori Hulkkonen — Let Me Luv U
35:50 Ormatie — Twisted Turns
40:06 Astrid Suryanto — Distant Bar (16 Bit Lolitas Mix)
46:39 Manoo — Winter
52:40 Manoo — Redzone
58:06 ADJD — Save Me
1:02:51 Roman Salzger — Solaris (Sebastian Drums & Rolf Dyman Work Machine Remix)
1:09:05 John Creamer & Stephane K — I Wish You Were Here ft. Nkemdi (Mike Viera & Pete Tha Zouk & Jaimy Remix)
My latest novel The Desert Road of Night, which explores many of the themes in my short stories, poems, and personal essays like this one, is available now on Amazon.
Originally published at worldasecstasy.com.
