I met Bob in 1993.  We met at a party, It was a large group of people  at  the home of   a couple I has just met at another party given  by  my  boss.   I don't know why I was drawn to him, he looked lost standing all alone leaning against a counter in the kitchen eating cheesecake.  We talked a bit, very little in fact.  It was nothing significant. Later  the  next week I got a call from  the party host, he asked me  if  I had  met  anytone  at  the party that I would like to get to know better.  By this time I forgotten Bob's name.  I described him and he knew who I was talking about.  He gave me Bob's number and I did, reluctantly, call him.  I was never one to initiate contact, I was shy and it caused me a lot of anxiety to talk with someone I didn't really know.  We had a really nice conversation, we were on the phone for quite a time.  We agreed to meet for dinner later in the week.  

The night of our dinner I picked Bob up at his apartment.  He had recently moved into the place, it was a carriage house apartment in a bad part of town. It was an area of town that he no place being in, later I would learn from a co-worker that Bob's apartment was one block from the worst crack park in Savannah.  We went to Snapper's on Whitemarsh Island.  Bob would eventually work at Snapper's.

I remember being somewhat concerned about our compatability.  Bob told me that he had wanted to attend The School of Mines and study geology, but his father and stepmother would not let him.  He talked about his college career and his studying to be a teacher.  Bob didn't finish his degree.  He told me he became disillusioned with teaching when he was told, in a class, that he could not correct a  student's english usage.  He now worked second shift as an assistant manager of a Revco Drug store.  Bob told me that now he wanted to be a hairdresser.  That seemed stereotypically gay to me.  Bob was somewhat effeminate, not at all what I liked.  I still was worried and uncomfortable about being found out, so I tended to like men who were more masculine.  After dinner I took Bob home, we went into his apartment and talked for a while.  The apartment was small, the kitchen terrible, the bathroom worse.  He had a small dog, Sydney he had named her after the Mayflower Madam, Sydney Biddle Barrows.

That night Bob kissed me when we got to the car, it was a full on kiss, not a peck on the cheek, and he did it again several times, we both were getting more and more aroused and it was outside.  I remember feeling his erection as we hugged.  I left that evening, we had agreed to meet again. I am not sure what the events were.  I do remember Bob and I did a lot together.  We both liked the beach and spent a lot of time there.  We would spend hours talking.  We began to talk daily, then several times daily, we would meet for lunch.  I remember enjoying Bob immensely, I remember going to his apartment on Saturday mornings, he had given me a key, and crawling in bed with him.  Most of the time he didn't wake up he just turned and put his arms around me and cuddled tightly against me.  I felt loved, I felt wanted, I felt an overwhelming calm.  I had never had this before, I had never felt this before, I liked the feeling, I was falling in love.

When I moved to Savannah I stayed with my mother, she was moving and I was looking for an apartment of my own.  I had been told to live outside the city, primarily because of the crime.  Bob and I had grown closer, much closer.  There were times I would feel a twinge of uneasiness at some of the things he would  say and do.  I arrived at his apartment one day, his hand was cut, multiple  cuts, he said he wanted to see if the air conditioner was working so he stuck his hand into the units fan,  it just happened to be on at the time .This  concerned me.  Bob did things that at times made no sense.  One day we were at the beach and we were walking out in the surf on the south end of Tybee, the tide was going out and we got into an area where there was an undertow. I nearly lost my balance the water was so strong.  It didn't phase Bob at all, it actually scared me that he did not think that it was dangerous.  I remember him telling me it was OK to just follow him.  There were other signs, his telling me how he flirted with men in the bars to get drinks.  Bob spent his nights after work at Faces or Club One.  His routine was to go to the bars after work and stay out late.  I guessed that his life was probably pretty sad, he seemed sad, very sad.

One evening we wanted to cook for me.  He got ribs, the problem was his stove was broken and would only heat to 500 degrees.  He had a grill and was going to fix the ribs on the grill.  They didn't come out quite right, that was fine, it was nice that he wanted to do it for me.  That night I spent the night, I remember Bob not going to bed when I did, I found that strange.  He never wanted me to stay up when he wanted to go to bed, but he would stay up without me.  Some of this may have been his schedule, some of this may have been the beginning of his need to have me around all the time.

I really enjoyed the time we spent together.  I think I admired Bob's charm, his boyish qualities and his neediness. He was the sweetest man I’d ever met, he had a vulnerability about him that made me want to protect him.  He was someone that needed taking care of, he was depressed and the more I learned about his life the more I loved him.  His mother had recently died and he had not seemed to deal with the loss, he would cry when he spoke of her.  He had never lived alone, he was doing it for the first time at 28., Bob had a series of living arrangements, all were short lived.  He had bounced around from friend to friend.  There was never really any stability in his life.  That made me sad for him.

While Bob was in college he met Steven.  Steven was much, much older than Bob and a good ten years older than me.  That would have made him about twenty years older when they met.  Bob was just twenty, so Steven was probably past forty.  Bob ended up moving in with Steven.  Probably the worst thing he could have done.  Bob dropped out of school and had several jobs, low paying jobs, a grocery store and a sub shop.  I'm not sure how long Bob lived with Steven, he told me they had never had sex but slept in the same bed while Bob lived with him.  Bob told me that he had been raped.  I asked him how it happened and he said the guy forced himself on him.  I was worried about that, I was worried about the partners he had, sexual partners.  One was Rick, he worked in a pawn shop and was someone Bob had dated and slept with, I would later find out that Rick was HIV+ and he never told Bob.  All the men Bob told me about were much older than he, the involvement was short, intense and none of these guys, except for Steven, was in his life.  Rick maintained contact but that was about all, or so I think.  Steven always had a hold on Bob.  I often said to Bob that he and Steven should probably ended up together.  I think in some respects Steven was fulfilling a father need for Bob.  Steven had many "relationships". None lasted very long and all of the guys had some criminal background.  As Bob told me about all the older men I started to put together that he was being used, used in the worst possible way.  Bob was fresh young meat  for these guys.  They were not teaching him anything or helping him to be a better person.  They were not  helping him define himself as a gay man. What they were teaching him was how to engage in risky, dangerous behavior.

One night we had Steven and his then boyfriend over for dinner.  I didn't mind Steven, I didn't like the boyfriend.  Steven was a truck driver. Steven was an alcoholic. I cooked a nice dinner and had set the table as I normally would for company.  After dinner Steven and his boyfriend asked us to go Faces, a bar downtown.  I told them I could not because of work.  I felt funny when Bob asked me if he could go without me.  I didn't know what to think, part of me was concerned and part of me was angry.  I told Bob, honestly, that I prefered his not going.  He pressed a bit as to why and then backed off.  I was insecure of Bob going.  Bob had told me some of his drinking stories and he had been arrested for DUI.  I immediately went to his having told me about the flirting for drinks and that concerned me.  He didn't go that night.  I was thankful he didn't go.

The months went by and Bob and I grew closer and closer, I had fallen deeply in love with Bob.  I remember the night I told him.  He didn't tell me back.  I should have wondered why.  In the later part of July, Bob called me late in the evening.  His voice was trembling, he sounded like he was crying.  He told me his apartment had been broken into, they had stolen his guns, took furniture, he told me the dog was found cowering under the bed.  I didn't know what to say to him, I felt terrible for him.  Over the next three nights Bob was robbed each night until nothing was left.  He was now going to be homeless and all his belongings were gone. The next words out of my mouth were why don't we live together.  He said yes.  We found an apartment on Wilmington Island, two bedrooms and two baths.  My furniture was delivered from Connecticut and we had a home.  The only problem was it was all mine and nothing of Bob’s

Bob got a promotion.  He was made manager of the Hilton Head store.  I was thrilled for him, he was certainly capable of doing the job.  The bad part was the job was on Hilton Head on the far end of the Island near the Sea Pines entrance and a long drive.  Bob had a car that we'd bought him, it was a Honda hatchback with high miles.  I worried about him driving that distance in that car.  Bob asked if he could use my car, my new 5 litre Mustang.  I let him.

My mother had become ill.  I noticed a change in her when Bob and I visited her in September, over Labor Day.  She seemed tired, very tired.  She had been sick with a respiratory infection after the move.  In late October she called me at work.  Something she never did.  I knew something was wrong for her to call me at work.  She asked me to come down, she was not doing well and needed me.  I told my boss what was happening, told Bob I was going.  I packed that night and set off the next morning.  When I got to the house I noticed she really hadn't been doing much.  She was not letting the dogs out.  For the next week I tried to get her into the doctor.  Finally I was able to get her seen.  She had congestive heart failure.  I ended up staying with her for three weeks.  During that time I talked to Bob regularly on the phone.  I worried about him being alone, but he said he was fine.  I returned home knowing that the next few months were going to be tough, I was going to go to mom's every other weekend and arranged time to be with her at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I remember walking into our apartment when I got home, I remember looking at Bob and asking him what had happened, he had lost thirty pounds while I was gone.  He said he hadn't been eating.  I was worried.

At Thanksgiving Bob took the train down, he then took the car to go home.  He was going to come and get me when I was ready to go  back to Savannah.  

Christmas came and Bob and I spent it with mom.  By this time she was doing better and was able to do things on her own.  I wouldn't see her again until March.

In the meantime our lives were pretty unremarkable,  I seemed to get busier and busier at work.  I was doing a lot and getting tired.  I was also depressed.  and having trouble with the culture shock of Savannah.  It was the south, it was nothing like liberal New England.  It was as if, in many ways, the civil rights movement had bypassed Savannah all together.

I went, at the urging of my supervisor, someone I now consider my best friend, to a psychiatrist.  He understood what was happening and put me on antidepressants.  In a few weeks I felt much better.  Bob had gone to the doctor several times with me for joint sessions.  He didn't like going, he didn't know why he had to be there.  He was the first doctor to tell me to leave Bob, this was before any of the problems surfaced.  Well, the serious problems.  I think, in retrospect that the doctor, who was closeted knew of Bob’s reputation. Life went on and was busy, I was taking on more at work, I was offered and took a second job as a counselor in an outpatient rehab program.  Bob was still working on Hilton Head.  We had varying schedules and were able to spend some time together. .  I was concerned about his level of depression.  .  Bob was always very needy but the more depressed he became the more needy he became.  It became very difficult for me to sleep.  I would lay on my stomach or side facing away from Bob.  He would literally be on top of me, it became very uncomfortable for me.  I talked to him about it and he looked crushed.  I felt terrible. .  

During those years, the early years, Bob would leave me cards telling me he loved me.  He sent me flowers at work for no reason.  Nice things that told me he did love me.  Eventually those things would stop.  I missed his doing that, I wanted the romance, I wanted to know he cared.  Our relationship lacked intimacy, I don’t think  Bob had any clue what intimacy was or how and why it is needed in a relationship.

Bob had been commuting to Hilton Head for six or seven months.  He called me one day, his voice shaking, he was upset.  Apparently there was a store inventory audit and it was bad.  He told me that it was from the previous manager.  He asked me what to do, he knew he was going to be fired.  I told him to try and stick it out, I told him if he needed to quit to do so, I would support his decision.  He ended up leaving the company.  He slipped into a depression that was difficult, he lost interest in everything.

Bob had worked since he was fifteen.  He was a janitor and graded papers and answered phones at his school.  He did this all through High School.  I had always wondered why his parents didn't let him be a teenager.  Because of this work is very important to Bob , it is not so much a strong work ethic as it is how he identifies himself.  I think that he didn’t have strong role models in the formative years, he was and is still unable to create balance in his life.  He undertakes work with such intensity that he ultimately spirals out of control.  I has happened repeatedly.  

Several weeks after Bob had become unemployed he was still not working.  I told him to get anything he could.  He really  didn’t even try to find a job..I was getting very worried about my mother.  I had been to visit her and was concerned about her being alone .  I discussed all of this with Bob.  We agreed to begin looking at jobs in Florida.  I was able to get an interview at a mental health /addictions center.  We decided to go down together for that interview.  We got down to mom's and began looking for a place to live.  Bob got an interview at a Taco Bell franchise as a manager trainee.  I remember his first day of work.  They had given him a woman's shirt instead of a mans.  He refused to take it off and just wear a plain shirt.  He was ready to leave well in advance of his appointment.  I don't know what the problem was, but while he was sitting waiting to go he fell asleep.  His wearing a womans shirt made no sense to me and I couldn't understand why he wouldn't take it off.

Bob was working, I was not.  I had to go back to Savannah and my job, I left my mom and Bob together.  I had always told Bob never to divulge our relationship to my mother.  I was not out to her and didn't want to be.  It was personal, my mother didn't take things well and ever since I'd been young she sheltered me.  He understood, or so I thought.  I went back to Savannah still hoping to find a job in Florida.  I don't remember the exact timing of all that happened, I do remember the phone calls and the drunken rampage my mother went on.  I guess she and Bob got drinking, I think she knew if she loosened him up he would talk.  Well she asked him if we were gay and he of course said yes.  That was it the floodgates opened and she let him have it and called me and let me have it too.  I was called every gay slur known to man.  She would repeatedly call me yell and hang up.  I got to talk to Bob briefly, he was scared, he'd never seen this side of her.  I figured that things would blow over in the morning and cooler heads would prevail.  I was wrong, my mother asked Bob to leave.  It was sad, hard for me, I loved Bob and I wanted nothing more than for her to like him and include him.  That was the last time they would see each other. Bob called me before he left her house to tell me he was on his way home.  I worried about him driving the distance having had little sleep.  I made a decision to myself that day.  I had to decide between my mother and Bob.  I chose Bob.  Mom and I didn't speak until the week before my birthday that year.  She never apologized, but she told me she missed me and wanted me to come down.

When I had gotten home after leaving Bob with my Mom there had been a water leak in our apartment.  It was serious and required repairs.  They did an awful job with the repairs.  There was too much going on and we both needed some peace and quiet.  Bob had been in touch with his "Uncle Eddy" who lived on the back river on Tybee Island.  The house was Bob's grandparents and his Great Aunt had maneuvered it away from the other relatives.  We got asked to Eddy's for dinner on a Saturday night.  I don't know how it came about, but the downstairs of the house was and apartment of sorts.  It was at the beach which great because we both loved it there.  Bob was still not working.  That put a lot of stress on me.  Eddy asked us if we'd like to move in, we both said yes.  We broke the apartment lease and moved out to Tybee.  I remember the day we moved, friends  of mine from work were there to help.  One was a peer of mine, he took me aside when we got to Eddy's and told me that a number of his clients were at the house for a party.  What was bad was that the clients were from the transitional center, they were not supposed to be in that environment.

Life at Eddy's was interesting.   Eddy was a terrible alcoholic.  He drank from the time he got up until he passed out at night.  We had little privacy and it was noisy all night, not good for me having to get up early for work.  We tried to manage, but both of us were becoming more and more uneasy.  The final straw came when Eddy was banging on the door one night wielding a gun, he was falling down drunk.  It scared the both of us.  I started the search for a new place to live.  Then we found a book in the spare bedroom, a book full of naked pictures of young boys and Eddy in some compromising positions.  A friend of mine at the Savannah Police Department told me after the fact that I should have turned the book over to him.  

Luckily we found a nice place on Officers Row.  It was the second floor of one of the former officers housing.  It had a full view of the ocean and you could see the ships coming into the mouth of the Savannah River.  We moved, with problems though. Eddy tried to stop Bob from taking the furniture, he claimed it was his, I made a call to the Tybee police Cheif and it was taken care of, Bob wasn't bothered at all.  Eddy did, however, stalk us for a time and it made me very uneasy, you could not miss him he had a black 1965 Mustang convertible, the only one on the Island.  The stalking stopped after Bob's father called him and told him to stop or he was going to make public the fact that Eddy molested him when he was young.  Eddy stopped.

I was in heaven.  I loved the beach, the house had a wrap around front porch.  I loved getting up in the morning and sitting on the porch having coffee.  I loved getting home at night and walking on the beach.  I only had Saturday off, so my life was pretty busy with a full time and part time job.  I loved riding my bike around the island, we had bought Bob a bike, he liked it but not when I got up at four in the morning to ride before work.  

Bob was working at Snapper's, on Whitemarsh Island, he enjoyed it and his schedule was not bad at all.  He worked Monday through Friday and just a couple of nights.

He was happy and that made me feel good.  Around Christmas that year I saw the first explosion of many.  Bob pulled over the Christmas tree in a rage one night.  He had gone completely off and I saw a side of him I had never seen.  It scared me.

We had joined a gym on Wilmington Island, it was great, small , not crowded and run by our doctor.  I would go and work out in the morning, Bob would go with me.  Bob didn't really work out though, he did more sitting.  For the first time since Connecticut I felt good and was getting weight off I'd put on since moving to Savannah.  Christmas I went to mom's, Bob didn't go to his parents, he stayed in Savannah.  I hated leaving him alone, that was the hardest part of my mothers and Bobs estrangement. I felt a need to be with her so she wasn't alone and I felt a need to be with my partner.  Bob said he understood, he never said anything about it until last summer.  He blamed me for not staying with him over the holidays.  

After Christmas we were in a routine.  I was still working a lot and was going on in my life.  I was under stress much of the time and was tired a lot.  It was in June I think that we were returning from the gym headed back out to Tybee.  There was a hurricane warning.  Of all the things I feared, A hurricane scared me the most.  I told Bob was scared and he made some off the cuff remark, I let him have it.  We got quiet and finished the drive home.  When we got home Bob went ahead of me into the apartment.  He was angry and started to break apart a rocking chair that was his mothers.  He continued to break the chair apart until nothing was left but splintered wood.   Then he locked himself in a closet.  He stayed there for what seemed forever.  I was shaking, I was worried, I had never seen him like this.  I called the medical director, a psychiatrist, that was head of our facility.  I told him what had happened and he told me to bring Bob in the next morning.  For the rest of that Sunday I tried to keep things as calm as possible. We talked a little about what had happened.  He told me about his spending time in the closet as a child, this went on through his teens.  He told me he had a TV in his closet, it was the place he would go to get away from the chaos at home.  I felt terrible for him.  I knew that day how damaged he really was.

Bob was seen the next day and immediately put on antidepressants.  The doctor was going to monitor him and arranged for psychological testing.  He had the testing and it revealed several things, he was in a severe depression, he was very smart, very smart and he was ADHD.  He stayed with the psychologist and the doctor, and within several months he was feeling better, had energy, seemed happy.  Bob changed for the better, he was finally interested in things, he was funny again, we laughed a lot.  

He continued on with the medications, they helped him immensely.  He got a promotion at work, not a great promotion but nonetheless a promotion.  Everything seemed calm.  The therapist said Bob was dissociative.  Basically, he would slip into psychosis when things were more than he could handle.  Treatable but tough.  The therapy centered around our relationship, Bob’s issues as well as mine.  I had hoped that we would come out of therapy with a better understanding of each other and a greater commitment from him.  I had  always felt that Bob was not really participating in our relationship.  He still had neediness about him, a kind of lost soul.  I worried about him, I worried about his depression and and I was deeply concerned for his future.  

My life became very busy.  I had two jobs, was going away for training in Chicago and spending a month at the Rutgers Summer School of Drug and Alcohol Studies.  My first trip to Chicago was in March.  I worried about leaving Bob at home alone.  Before I left I made out all the checks for bills coming due and instructions on when to send them.  Simple enough.  When I got back none of the bills had been sent out, my car insurance was past due, my car payment was late and a host of other bills.  I could not understand why he didn't send the bills out, then went to the bank and money was gone, the money to pay the bills.  I don't know what he spent the money on.  I questioned if he was going to bars, It crossed my mind that he was out doing things he probably should not have been doing.  Bob was not a good liar.  It was  obvious when he lied, he would stammer and look away from you when he lied.  He also had a habit of rolling his eyes when he lied.  I would point this out to him, he denied vehemently that he was lying, the more he protested the more it became clear he was lying.  

It was around this time that I was getting closer to a role of caretaker than that of a partner. Bob had begun to play with his medication, he would skip it, he would not take it at all.  It was easy to tell when he had not taken his medication.  He felt that the medication wasn't needed, this was just the beginning of what would be a long painful struggle and a spiral out of control that lasted for years.

It was also around this time that I began to be suspicious of Bob's life away from me.  He had kept me from his friends.  He didn't want me to get to know his friends,  He said I was the one isolating him when in fact it was Bob isolating me.  Then I started tohear that he was unhappy in our relationship.  I would try to talk to Bob about the problems and wanted to get to the bottom of anything that was causing trouble.  He wouldn't talk.  He would just clam up and say he was fine. I became insecure about what was going on.  Another thing happened that concerned me  for it was a change in his attitude.  We were invited to the friends where we met for our anniversary.  They wanted to celebrate our being together.  It was a cookout, they had a pool and were nudists.  I was not particularly fond of sitting around naked.  We had an understanding that we would come if everybody was clothed.  To my surprise Bob took off his clothes.  I was shocked.  This was a guy who, when I met him, put his underwear on after sex.  He wouldn't sleep nude either.  In time he would sleep nude and he stopped putting on his underwear after sex.  It was as if he was ashamed of having sex.  Guilt or being ashamed, I don't know.  That evening I did go swimming with no suit.  To my surprise and bewilderment Bob got in the hot tub with four other guys and didn't get in the pool with me.  I wondered what was going on.  This was the first of many changes that would take place, changes that would make me wonder who I'd become involved with.

That night everyone wanted us go to the bars with them.  Of course I said no, I think Bob thought that I would cave in and go.  He was different on the way home that night.  I felt a distance between us, I didn't like the feeling.  I remember holding him tight that night.  

In June I went back to Chicago.  That trip was a training trip and I wish I'd taken Bob with me.  I went with the director of the facility where I worked part time.  It was not a lot of fun, from the time we got on the plane this person was drinking.  Then he started making advances to me, unwelcome advances.  It was a nerve racking trip, I just clammed up because I didn't know what to do and was in a very awkward position.  Just before, the night before in fact, I had asked the people arriving to stay in the third floor loft to please be quiet.  It was one in the morning and I was awakened by the noise.  I had to get up at four thirty.  They were quiet the rest of the night.  

When I got home there was a letter from the woman who owned the house and was in the loud group.  It was a two page how dare you.  I don't react well to how dare you.  This woman had a reputation for being a nut and I had to much going on, I decided we were moving.  I called a friend who was an apartment manager on Wilmington Island, she got us a two bedroom apartment.  I changed my dates for Rutgers in order to move.  We moved got settled and I left for New Jersey.  I didn't want a repeat of the last time I was gone, I wanted there to be no problems when I got back.

Following the training I flew up to Boston to see my sister.  I hadn't seen her since leaving Connecticut.  We had a nice time.  The entire weekend I tried to find a time to tell her about my relationship with Bob.  As far as I knew, my mother believed we were not together.  At least that is what I told her.

When I got home the apartment was a mess.  Bob had done nothing the entire time I was gone.  I flew off the handle, it was another instance of Bob not participating in our relationship.  This would become worse over time, much worse.  The other problem was that Bob was and is very rough on things.  He treats things as disposable, he does not form attachments to things like the rest of us, he doesn't even form attachments with people.

Major changes were coming in our lives, changes that set a bad course for both of us in the end.  

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