Holding the Gate

Eddie pumped black African liquid soap infused with hyssop, basil, and rosemary essential oil onto his hands, scrubbing methodically, working the lather up his wrists, forearms, and under his fingernails. He was washing away his client's energy, the feel of their skin, the sticky residue of olive oil, the trauma their body was holding onto. It was his banishing rite to break the connection between him and his guys.

Later that week, Mark was back, and sitting on the edge of the massage table, he was staring at the wall tapestry, his shoulders, now relaxed and loose, looking profoundly different than they had an hour ago.

"Take your time, man," Eddie said, his voice soft, professional. "No rush. Just make sure you drink plenty of water today."

Mark turned, his eyes still a little unfocused from the deep work.

"Eddie," he said, his voice thick. "I've had massages all over New England. That was... that was something else. You have a gift. Seriously."

“Awe, gee, thanks buddy.” Eddie said with a smile.

Mark looked up at Eddie’s ceiling, over to the kitchen, and circled back to meet Eddie’s tender stare. “I have been thinking about my dad who passed away, been bummed out lately.” Mark said.

Eddie immediately understood why Mark had so much tension in the session. “Oh my god, Mark, I am so sorry for your loss!” Then he walked over and embraced Mark to give him one last injection of affection.

“If you need to talk about it you can. You know I am a friend, not just a massage guy.” Eddie looked into Mark’s eyes and said, “You can tell me anything. I have no vested interest in your family life at all.”

Mark, who had been holding back tears replied, “I loved my father. He was a good man. He was not perfect, but nobody is. My mom died when I was ten years old, and from that time on, it was just him and me. He never recovered from her death. He never remarried. He just kept to himself until he passed away,” Mark replied.

Eddie shook his head, acknowledging the wound that had just opened. But he was not ready for what came next.

Mark stared at the tapestry, not at Eddie. “When I was fifteen, he started… being with me. Sexually.” He swallowed. “It went on for years. Into my twenties. Then one day it just stopped, and we never said a word about it. Not once.”

Eddie had his eyes locked with Mark, and at that moment, invoked “Full Sacred Intimacy Protocol.” His mediumship blew open, and he didn’t see the secret. He saw the boy inside it: a kid in a too-quiet house, a kitchen with one plate too many, a father who never stopped setting the table for a dead wife.

Eddie didn’t flinch. He had trained himself to brace when his clients revealed intimate secrets about their lives. Eddie had hundreds of conversations assisting men that were processing through their sexually traumatizing experiences: sexual violence, manipulation, and boundary violation is more common than anyone would ever know.

Without blinking, Eddie tipped his chin and said, “How do you feel about that?”

Eddie had run a hundred possible responses and scenarios through his head in seconds and determined the best thing to say was as little as possible as the truth revealed itself.

Mark’s jaw worked. He didn’t say anything else for a long moment.

Eddie was holding the gates of the Temple of Gu open.

In the most nonjudgmental voice he could muster, Eddie replied, “So, do you feel like it was abuse?”

Mark responded adamantly, “Oh no, no. My dad was not an abusive person. He was a good person. I loved my father. I was there in the hospital with him when he passed.”

Eddie had taken a step closer to Mark and held both of his hands in his. “Do you have a son, buddy?”

Mark replied, “Yes, and he is married with kids.” He looked Eddie dead in the eye. “And no. Never. Nothing like that. I made damn sure of it. Whatever happened in my house stopped with me.”

Eddie shook his head in acknowledgment. Eddie’s mediumship came up in a second wave. He could see Mark sitting in Church the day his son got married. He saw Mark when he found out his son’s wife was pregnant.

He saw Mark’s son holding his grandson. And then Eddie blinked hard. It was the only way he could halt the visions flowing in. If Eddie didn’t stop, he would have continued to follow the family line for generations.

“Wow, buddy. Thank you for being so vulnerable with me. That’s a lot.”

Mark responded, “I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I've never told a soul. That was just something that happened with my dad when we were alone. It was our secret. I know my father loved me. To some people, that might sound like abuse. But it was my life. I lived it. He was my dad. That’s all I’ve got left of him, and I don’t know what to do with it.”

Eddie could feel that Mark’s secret, one he had maintained his entire life, for at least forty years, was now exorcised. Eddie did what intuitively he knew he was supposed to do: hold space for men to heal their sexual traumas, their shame, and their guilt, the kind that was never theirs to carry.

Eddie knew what it was. Mark wasn’t ready to call it by its name, and a massage table wasn’t the place to force the word on him. His job today was to be the first person who heard it and didn’t flinch. The naming could come later.

Before Mark left, Eddie pressed a card into his hand, the number of a therapist in Northampton who worked with men carrying exactly this kind of secret. Then he gave Mark a hug and sent him on his way. He closed the door to the apartment and turned around to feel all of his shrines staring back at him.

“Well, everybody, that was some wild shit,” Eddie said, expressing his grief with his beloved dead.

“I want to take a shower, I want weed, I want coffee, and I want to lie down,” Eddie declared as he stumbled into his kitchen.