Authors: Alan Conway
Brian
Through the reflection of the mirror in the hallway, I can see him seated at the computer. He doesn't know I'm watching, but if he had closed his door, I wouldn't have seen him jacking off. I haven't showered. My beard is like Velcro. I feel unattractive. Mom calls. We bullshit for a few minutes. Damon comes out into the living room and turns on the football game. I fall asleep. A knock on the door wakes me up. It's the pizza guy. Damon pays the man and inhales two slices. The pizza looks well-made and perfectly cooked, but I'm not hungry. I wanted to cook something, perhaps angel hair pasta with a brown butter garlic sauce, but I haven't had the energy to go to the grocery store. And I know Damon isn't responsible enough to go alone. A receptionist calls to confirm my appointment for tomorrow. I'm nervous. My prescription ran out yesterday, but I haven't said anything. I'm cold.
A good night's sleep has become an elusive, mythical state. I had lain awake most of the night, watching him sleep, thinking about how much things have changed. With my health starting to fade and my inability to keep writing, I'm worried that Damon's income won't be enough to satisfy our costs of living. Lauren is coming over at six, so hopefully after a strong cup of coffee, I'll perk up enough for movie night. She says she has a surprise for me. I don't like surprises. Not anymore.
The cable goes out. He turns on the radio. He's frustrated. He can't find the game, so we listen to NPR. My head hurts. It's nearly three o'clock, I think. I'm not sure because my watch is dead. The news ends and Stravinsky begins. Damon moves the dial to a pop station. Our favorite song is playing. The one we use to sing together in the car. We hum it through the second chorus, but he turns the station before the lead guitar solo I really like. I doubt he does it to be mean. Maybe I never told him I liked it. He steps out onto the balcony to smoke. He smokes a lot now.
Devin is in kindergarten now. The three of us sometimes argue who he looks like the most. There’s no clear answer, really. He has Damon’s rich brown eyes and olive skin tone, Lauren’s nose and lips. I think he has Damon’s thick hair, too, which is also nice. I’m glad, because he’ll be a good-looking young man one day. We all agree he has my personality. The good parts, of course.
Lauren calls and asks if she and Adam can come over tonight. It is perfectly all right. Adam is a swell fellow and we’ve become pretty good friends over the years. Damon and I ride to the video store. We get two movies: one horror, one comedy – our typical cinema cocktail. Mom calls me on my cell phone. Says her biopsy came back negative. I tell her that’s fantastic news. I find a receipt from last summer in the pocket of my jacket – Delany’s in Portland. One chicken fetuccini alfredo and one wood-fired, thin crust pepperoni pizza. And one soda, of course, his – I had water. We flew out there for the weekend to visit my sister who had gotten a summer internship at a high-profile record label. She took us to see an alternative rock band called The Berlin Pigeons in concert. Her boyfriend told us he was in the band, but it turns out he was just a guitar tech. A fill-in guitar tech. I wasn’t impressed. Anyway, her boyfriend (I think his name was Tom) gets us backstage. The band signs our T-shirts and the lead guitarist even let me noodle around on his 1977 Butterscotch Fender Telecaster which feels and sounds like butter even while unplugged. Damon just watches, smiling. I try to tell him I should get a guitar like that, but he’s texting, and for some reason, if he’s texting while I’m talking to him, he doesn’t listen. I don’t think he’s capable of multi-tasking. He’s always been like that, and it drives me absolutely bugshit. I repeat myself and he agrees.
We watch the comedy first because we simply can’t enjoy a horror movie in the daytime. The movie sucks. I throw up the pizza. I chew on a mouthful of Rolaids and realize we have no mail on the bar. Oh yeah, I forgot. Damon doesn’t get the mail. So I go get the mail. Medical bills. I make coffee and thumb through a J. Crew catalog.
“What time is Lauren coming over?” Damon asks.
I tell him again, since he obviously missed it earlier while we were en route to the video store. He finishes his soda and heads for the balcony.
“You’ve already gone through that whole pack?” I ask. He gets defensive when I bring up his smoking, but he finally nods. He’s putting on weight, too. Not much, but he’s getting soft. I’m not nearly as shallow as he is, so I profess to you that I still love him, no matter what he looks like. I feel like we’re growing apart. Maybe he’s getting tired of me. He used to say that he couldn’t see himself spending the rest of his life with any one person. Perhaps my naivety blinded me from that red flag years ago. He still smells wonderful.
“Are you okay?” I ask. He’s looking rugged, but sexy in his plaid flannel shirt. I’m a bit horny, but I still feel like throwing up. He takes a long drag of a Marlboro and stares out at the cars on the interstate cutting through the valley below us.
“I gotta tell you something,” he says.
I say okay and wait for it.
“I slept with Heather.”
No surprise. I’m not sure if I care. “When?”
“Years ago. Before Devin was born. You and I were together, though.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” I’m honestly curious. I need some Excedrin.
“Maybe it's guilt, or maybe I want to come clean in case – well, in case something happens to you. Or maybe I feel like you deserve the truth.”
“I see,” I say, sitting down.
“It happened one time. You and I had a fight, I went out, got drunk, she called, and one thing lead to another. Maybe I haven't changed that much. Maybe I'm still an asshole with an animalistic thirst for pussy. It's that one thing I can't have with you. And we talked about this before we ever got together.”
“And I said I understood then, and I understand now. I know it's not perfect being with me. We both have something missing from us that keeps us down. But you also have to realize that we have more than most people do. We have a child together. A beautiful child that loves us because we're his parents and we love him, too.”
“It just sucks, Brian. Why do we have to be so boring?”
“We've always been boring,” I say.
“Yeah, but we're worse than ever. And I'm a fuckin wreck because I might wake up tomorrow and you won't. Do you see? Do you see why I'm falling apart here?”
I take his cigarette and toss it over the side then pull him close to me. We hold each other for a long time and I don't care who's watching us.
“I'm not mad at you,” I say to his shoulder.
“Yes, you are. I know you,” He says to mine.
I push him away and wish I could wipe that distressed mask off his face. I know he's worried. I am, too.
“No, I'm not. I just don't want us to take for granted this time we have left together. We've let ourselves fall away from each other because we're afraid and we don't know how to deal with it. All we know is that we don't like the way we feel. Promise me we'll make an effort to change things even if it's the last time. I don't know if we'll get another chance.”
He strokes the few hairs left on my head. He holds me again and kisses my forehead. His strong arms grip my tired body as I hear him whisper for the first time in seventeen years, “Brian, I love you.”
The shock keeps me from saying it back, but I finally do and mean it more than I ever have. The door swings open and Lauren's standing there with Adam behind her.
“Sorry, no one answered the door. I didn't mean to interrupt.”
Before she can close the door, I tell her it's okay and we go inside to visit with our guests. I've already forgotten about Lauren's surprise. Hearing Damon's baritone voice utter those three words was the biggest and best surprise I could have ever hoped for.
Damon
I can't believe I said it, but I'm glad I did. I can't believe it took this long, but some things take a really long time to work their way out of you. After I confessed what had been weighing on me and then telling Brian I love him, a blanket of serenity wrapped me up and everything suddenly felt all right again.
Devin is on the floor watching cartoons, ones that I remember watching as a kid. I lie down next to him and ruffle his hair, which needs to be cut. I almost tell Lauren, but I decide not to. All we need is to start bickering over stupid shit.
Alan bends down to shake my hand and I notice he's looking quite excellent today. He's wearing a suit that must have been tailored. It's pimp. I comment on it and he tells me that it was in fact tailored and solemnly enlightens me on the occasion.
He's going to a funeral. His aunt passed away from liver disease last night. It's too bad, really. Adam pulls me aside while Brian and Lauren chat it up in the living room. He asks me if I've ever considered going back to school. I tell him I have, but it has never been the right time. Now is certainly the worst time for me to go back, especially while Brian's sick and Devin's still young. I must admit that part of me should start thinking about what I'm going to do when Brian's gone, but I don't want to think about that right now. I need a drink.
I make one.
Brian
I look out at the apartment building across from ours. It's gilded with golden sunlight as it approaches six o'clock. I suck down one of Damon's cigarettes just to see what the fuss is all about. I cough a few times and pitch it over the balcony. I check my phone. No messages. Two frat boys carry a beer pong table out onto their patio. They don't notice me watching from the third floor, but to be honest, I'm not that interested. I just need focus my attention on the mundane in order to avoid worrying. I go inside, turn on the news, fix a sandwich. No messages.
He should have been home an hour ago, but maybe he stopped off for groceries. Maybe he ran into an old friend he hasn't seen in a while. That's it. No need to worry, Brian.
I do worry. Too much, in fact. When I pass the TV and see the helicopter footage of the tangled wreckage on I-24, I notice a burning car in the southbound lane that looks eerily similar to Damon's. Before another chestnut of reassurance passes through my brain, I notice the faded “Soldier's Fury” sticker on the rear bumper and my body goes numb as if I've been shot up with quarts of novocaine. I drop my sandwich and run to my car, dialing Benton Memorial with a hand that doesn't seem to belong to me.
Lauren
I’ve tried calling Brian but the line is busy. Adam calls me and says he’s waiting for them to bring Damon in. The air-flight helicopter is in route. Five minutes, he says. Five long minutes.
I leave Devin with my sister and spend the next hour on the interstate, waiting in the swelling traffic caused by the pileup. I try Adam again. No answer. I’m pissed off and scared out of my mind. Now I’m getting angry. You better not die, Damon. You better not fucking die. Don’t you die on us. Don’t–
Adam’s calling. I answer it and he tells me Damon’s badly burned. Oh sweet holy Jesus. He’s unconscious and he’s not breathing. They’re trying to resuscitate him right now, but it doesn’t look good.
Brian’s there but they won’t let him see Damon. He’s delirious and completely mad. Adam forcibly gave him a sedative. He’s in the burn unit waiting room on the third floor.
Once I finally get there, my head throbbing and my stomach chewing on shards broken glass, I find Brian. He’s staring out of the big glass windows overlooking the courtyard. His eyes are bloodshot and glazed over. The thin patches of hair on his head stick out like wheatgrass raped by a windstorm. I touch his shoulder and say his name.
Silence. I might as well be a ghost.
“Brian, is Damon all right? Dammit, talk to me!”
I shake him, wanting to hear something, anything. But he doesn’t have to say anything. His face already told me.
“No. No, Brian.” My voice comes from far away through a tunnel or a cave, a long distance transmission from reality. I pound Brian’s chest with the back of my fists but I don’t know why I do it. He lets me for a while until he wraps me up in his arms and holds me. We hold each other. His whiskers are rough on my forehead and I want to tell him to shave – it’s almost automatic and it nearly makes me hee-haw into madness for thinking of something as trivial as that at a time like this.
A time like what? I’m overreacting. I must be. Damon’s fine. He’s probably banged up pretty good and burned a little, but he’s going to be okay. He’s Damon. I just talked to him this morning and he was fine. We were all going to go to–
“Are you the… family of Damon Loveless?”
Brian nods to the nurse without looking at her.
“They’re taking him down now,” she says. “You’ll need to sign–”
Brian waves her away, nodding. She gets the message and walks away quietly.
“What happens now?” he asks. I’m still against his chest listening for his heartbeat but I can’t hear it. I wonder if it stopped beating when Damon’s finally gave up.
Brian
I stare at him for a long time, waiting for him to speak. He doesn't. I try not to imagine what he looks like now. Nothing like in this framed photograph in my hand, I’m sure. I hope he's comfortable. I want to kiss his cheek and smell him again, but I'll never have that chance. I touch the casket and it's cold like he must be. My legs move without my control, carrying me to the front pew marked
reserved
where I sit and watch the others take their turn to reflect on a life lost. A life lived and now gone. There's music playing but I can't hear it. Not really. I blink. My eyes burn. I decide to keep them closed for a while until a hand rests on my shoulder. Lauren leans over and squeezes me. I shake Adam's hand. They don't speak. A world of silence. Quiet. Empty. I look over at Devin, his legs dangling, coloring a picture with a stubby blue crayon. He has no clue what's happening. At this point, neither do I.
The service drags by. Six of us carry him out and push the box across the casters in back of the hearse. As I follow the procession through the mist, I'm tempted to play our song. Just one last time. I don't. Can't handle it. Not right now.