The Man I Love (13 page)

The conservatory was reeling in the wake of James’s suicide attempt. Rumors layered on top of nervous intrigue, piling up in Mallory Hall like poor scaffolding. Erik kept his ear peeled to the whispers, but in all the talk of James, he did not hear anyone mentioning Will’s name. Not romantically anyway. People guessed James had snapped after losing his spot in the concert and losing his role to Will. A few went a little deeper and pointed out it was no secret James was crushy on Will and it had made the atmosphere of
Powaqqatsi
rehearsals tense. But nowhere was there even a whiff of innuendo the attraction was mutual. Nobody hinted anything had happened.

Between Erik and Daisy, Will and Lucky, and even David, a single look was exchanged. A complicit agreement.

“Entre fucking nous,” David said through his teeth.

The days passed in quiet productively. The atmosphere around Mallory was subdued, but serene. No one admitted James’s absence, although shocking and tragic, was a relief. Erik kept the penny in his pocket, meaning a dozen times to track down James’s address and mail it, but then forgetting. He and David put in long hours at the shop. Daisy and Will worked hard polishing “The Man I Love” and came home exhausted. Lucky fussed around making healthy dinners and icing sore joints. The air at Jay Street was comfortable and sweet. One night Erik and Daisy lifted their heads out of sleep at the sound of Lucky moaning Will’s name. They smiled at each other, biting back laughter, and laid down again.

Then it was Sunday of tech week, and the stage crew met in the shops at nine in the morning, ready to bring the
Who Cares?
set up to the stage.

“You’re going to be two heads short,” Leo said, his voice a rasp. ”Hell of a bug is going around.”

“You feel all right?” David said.

“I feel like crap, children.”

“Go home,” Erik said. “We can handle it.”

“You’re short two heads. I’ll get the sets up with you and wire the booms. Then I’ll go home.”

It took three hours to get the New York City skyline arranged to David’s satisfaction. Then they had to hustle to hang the boom stands before the dancers arrived at one o’clock.

Neil Martinez, one of the sick stagehands, dragged himself in around one-thirty. Leo went home. Kees arrived, saying Michael Kantz was sick as well.

“So I’m in charge,” Kees said, looking around at the company. “Are we clear?”

“Of course, darling,” Marie said. “You can be in charge of coffee.”

During the focus session, Erik sat with David in the house, taking notes and making cue sheets, as David discussed the lighting design with Marie. When they were ready for a first run of the ballet, Erik went into the booth to test a few of the cues.

“Hey.”

Erik turned his head. Daisy was coyly peeking around the door.

“Get over here,” he said, tossing his pencil aside. He swiveled in his chair as she bounded into the booth. He pulled her into his lap and drew her down on his chest, letting the seat rock back.

“You look familiar,” she said, tracing his bottom lip with her thumb. “Have we met?”

“I made you come your brains out last night but we weren’t properly introduced, no.”

She laughed, the color rising up into her face.

He pulled her down to kiss him. “Jesus, that was out of control.”

Daisy sat up and moved one of her legs, straddling him in the chair. He put his feet up on the console, leaning back to look at her.

She perched high on his lap, slim and neat in pink tights and her purple leotard with the criss-cross straps. Her dark hair pulled up in a bun, all errant strands and curls secured. Last night it had spilled down her back in tangled waves. He had wrapped its length around his fingers, drawing it aside to run his mouth up her neck, salty sweat and perfume.

“You were incredible,” he said.

“Me? I didn’t do a damn thing, just took what you gave.”

Erik smiled, his eyes far away with memory. He had her down at the corner of the bed, on her stomach while he came into her from behind. He stood over her, holding her wrists crossed in the small of her back. Watching himself slide in and out of her, listening to her come. Then come again. He was completely in control. He was young and on fire. He could go all night.

“Give it to me,” she had said, gasping, pushing back against him, her legs trembling, her back arching and desperate.

“You like that?” he whispered, his voice husky with power.

“I want it. All night long. Every night. The rest of my life, just keep doing that. God, you fuck me so good…”

The uninhibited language and the raw ache in her voice had made him want to throw back his head and roar like a lion. His grip tightened on her wrists. He held her down and gave her what he had, crazed and consumed, wanting to make her scream the house apart.

He looked at her now, shaking his head. “You were so hot,” he said, running his hands along her legs, kneading the muscles of her thighs. “You have no idea.”

Daisy blushed again, even her ears were red. “I can’t believe some of the shit I was saying.”

“I loved it.” He raked his hands through his hair, looking up at the ceiling, still astonished at how they had stepped off the edge of themselves. Just when he thought they had run the gamut of sexual possibilities, when he was sure the structure was finished, convinced they had come together and connected in every way conceivable…something like last night happened.

You fuck me so good.
It wasn’t a word they typically threw around in bed but the more he threaded it through his mind, the more natural it felt. Not crude or belittling, but truthful in a way he couldn’t quite articulate. Authentic. And safe. Because the night had been raw, but it had still been loving.

Savage tenderness.

Another spire on the cathedral.

“I really was just fucking you,” he said, leaning on it, seeing if it would still hold weight.

Daisy’s eyes widened and she put her fingers on his lips, laughing and looking over her shoulder to the open door of the booth. “Yes, you were,” she said.

“The way you were coming.” He took her hand off his mouth, entwined her fingers with his. “I’ve never seen you like that.”

“When you had my hands behind my back? And you were just holding me down?”

“It was insane.”

“It was amazing,” she said. “Giving everything up to you. I loved it.” Her voice was a low purr. Her fingers tight with his, her eyes deep in his, her warm weight in his lap. She leaned down, barely a sound as her lips moved. “When will you do it again?”

“Soon as we get out of here.” Happiness flooded his chest as he stared up into her eyes. Long rolling waves of emotion and desire. He wanted her badly, was hard with it. And yet he wanted for nothing. Everything was perfect. Right here. Right now.

“Promise?” she said.

He nodded. “I’m gonna make you forget your name.”

Her pupils dilated, black eclipsing blue. “I swear. I totally want to ditch this rehearsal and go back to bed.” Daisy, who had never missed a rehearsal in her life. Daisy, who went to class whether she had her period or a fever or a nail torn off. Daisy, saying she would walk away from the theater right now. For him.

“Me too,” he whispered.

Then Marie’s voice trilled from the front of the auditorium, breaking the spell. “Where is the man I love?” she called. “Will? Daisy?”

“The man I love all right,” Daisy said, swinging her leg off and getting up.

“I love you,” Erik said, laughing. He caught her hand, holding onto the connection a few more precious seconds.

She ran her other hand through his hair. “I love us,” she said, and kissed him.

“Us.”

He held her fingers as long as possible as she went out the door and down the aisle. She walked a few steps, then stopped. She turned around and pointed at him. He stared back at her through the glass of the booth. Her smile was sweet. Her eyes were wicked. She turned again, leaned gracefully by the seat where her bag was and pulled out her pink practice skirt. Deftly tying it around her slender waist, she walked down the aisle and up to the stage where Will was waiting. Will held out his hand and she took it.

Neil Martinez popped up from behind one of the buildings in the skyline. Cupping his hands he yelled, “Fish, can you bring up the special for the set?” His voice broke and he coughed against one fist.

Erik slid those levers forward. Half the set lit up, the buildings meticulously outlined in tiny lights. The other half stayed dark.

“Dave, I think we got cables crossed back here,” Neil said. “Something’s not right.”

David slapped his clipboard down on the seat beside him and got up. “Leave it up, Fish,” he called back. He took two quick steps, planted a hand and foot on the apron, gracefully hopping onto the stage. He passed Will and Daisy and disappeared behind the set.

A moment later, his head popped up. “Fish, take it out. I need a couple minutes to fix this. Why don’t you guys do your run so you’re not standing around?”

Erik slid the levers and the set went dark. Daisy and Will walked upstage. She gave him a playful shove as they slipped into the wing.

Marie Del’Amici remained in the front row. Kees brought her a cup of coffee. He took his own cup and sat in one of the rear rows. Erik could see his bald head from the lighting booth.

Lucky crossed from stage left to stage right, rolling up an ace bandage. She did a little skip, a tripping leap and a twirl, and disappeared behind the curtain to a smattering of applause. John Quillis then crossed the stage with more impressive moves, and exited into the same wing to a chorus of boos.

“Are we ready?” Marie called.

They were.

Everybody in place.

Everything was perfect.

I love us,
Erik thought.
All of us.

The music started.

Will and Daisy made their entrance.

Three-quarters of the way through the pas de deux, James Dow walked in.

When James Dow came into Mallory Hall on the afternoon of April 19, 1992, he was carrying a second generation Glock 17 pistol with a high-capacity magazine. The weapon had belonged to James’s late sister, Margaret.

James entered the backstage area, coming into the wings at the left of the stage where fourteen students—a mix of dancers and tech crew—were watching Will and Daisy in their rehearsal. James opened fire, shooting five dead and wounding six others. The remaining four fled the wings.

Erik didn’t hear the gunfire backstage. Between the volume of the music and the glass of the lighting booth, the sound never reached him at the back of the house.

Will said he was aware of some kind of commotion in the stage left wing. But he had been dancing down on the apron with Daisy, where the music levels were most intense. The commotion was behind him. And it had been right at the moment of the difficult lift on his shoulder, so his concentration was especially focused.

Daisy was facing the wings as she ran to Will, the light from the boom stands in her eyes. James was backlit, in silhouette, but perhaps Daisy did see him, although her memory blacked out long before the shots were fired. The rest of her life, she would remember little from the day.

It would be years before Erik could construct the shooting as a linear event. Until then, his mind only island-hopped from one terrifying image to the next, out of order and overlapping. Within the fragments, only his physical memories were clear and intact. If a true mental narrative had existed, it was gone. Later, in the remembering, and the telling, he felt he was making half of it up.

He didn’t know it was James. Not right away. Someone came out of the wings as Daisy ran to Will. Stage left from the vantage point of the performers but stage right from Erik’s perspective. The lift was a lighting cue, number thirty-four: bring up the mid-shinbusters, intensifying the pink wash onstage. Erik was watching Daisy throw her leg and roll over Will’s back. He slid the levers, timing the cue to the both the choreography and the modulation in the music. In his right peripheral, he saw a third person onstage but he thought it was Trevor King, the assistant stage manager. He guessed Trevor had seen an errant screw or nail on the floor and was getting it out of the way.

Except Trevor King was black.

The guy on the stage was white.

Perhaps Erik would have paid more attention to the discrepancy if Daisy didn’t overshoot the roll and teeter a little precariously on Will’s shoulder. A moment of alarm, but then Will’s hand came up to steady her, holding her left leg. He had her. He always had her. She was good and balanced. Will let go and extended his arm again. Just as the white man who wasn’t Trevor extended his arm.

Erik had never heard live gunfire in his life. When a lick of flame erupted from the man’s sleeve and three punching bangs split the Gershwin melody, Erik continued to sit with his hands on the console. An incalculable length of time passed before he could associate sound and action. Even then his mind refused to grasp it, refused further to put a name with the face.

He heard those three shots clearly and he never forgot their rhythm. Two quick bangs. A pause. A third.

Two shots and Will jerked up, back arched, his left arm flying up into the air with a spray of red. All the weight leaning forward on his leg went straight up into the air as well, the force of his writhing body knocking Daisy off his back. Then James fired a third time and Daisy’s scream cut the theater in two.

Erik stood up, his chair rolling back and away. On the other side of the glass, Kees stood up too, coffee in hand. Marie must have jumped up. David said he and Neil both looked over the top of the set before hitting the floor. In the stage right wing, John pushed Lucky to the ground and threw himself on top of her, pinning her tight as she screamed for Will.

Will’s body imploded, crumpling down on the floor. Daisy crashed down next to him, the pastel tones of her dance clothes now stained red.

Erik only just registered she had been shot when the man with the gun jumped off the stage, firing into the orchestra seats. Three shots to the left, four to the right. Then he started coming up the aisle. Erik watched for incredulous seconds before recognizing the close-cropped hair and the gold earrings. Only then did he dive to the floor of the lighting booth with the full realization.

James.

A cacophony of screams, running footsteps, slamming doors. And more hard, sizzling pops rattling the air. Erik rolled further under the console, kicking cables and equipment aside, pulling himself in. Another series of shots, closer now. Then the windows of the lighting booth exploded. Erik cried out as shards of glass rained down on the console and spilled onto the concrete floor. He wrapped his arms around his head, a bristling ball of fright through which pierced a single thought:

My mother doesn’t know where I am.

A lull then. Near absolute quiet except for the tinkle of falling glass. And a steady whooshing noise Erik gradually recognized as his own breathing. A faint lucidity crept around his brain. He clutched it, fought to put things back in order.

What happened? What just happened? What is happening?

He was on the floor of the lighting booth with broken glass all around him. Glass James shot out. James had a gun. James was in the theater with a gun. He came onstage and fired. He shot Will.

He shot Daisy.

What Erik did next would be held up by some as heroic. He would never understand why. He felt his actions were more suicidal than anything. Daisy was shot. She could be dead. And that pulled Erik out from under the console because if Daisy were dead, his life was over as well. He didn’t go out of the booth to stop James. He went out to see if he was going to die today.

He wasn’t a hero.

He was in love.

He crawled through the broken glass and went out of the booth.

Like a crab, Erik emerged into the aisle, crouched down low to the carpeted floor, up against the side of the booth. The silence roared in his ears. He wasn’t afraid. He breathed a little shakily through his mouth, but he felt oddly calm. A little floaty, even. He looked at the stage. Will was curled up on his side. Daisy was on her back, her arms splayed out.

James was down around the tenth row. The silence shattered as he squeezed off another round. A strange squeal of impact and a chunk of plaster fell from the decorative frieze around the stage. It hit the floor with a thud and a puff of dust and Daisy turned her head toward the sound.

She moved.

She was alive.

Erik felt a pure, relieved joy. Then he was terrified. The raw fear flooded his young body, seizing his limbs and guts, twisting around him like a thick steel cable. Death’s presence loomed over him, tall and terrible. His heart was thudding so hard against the wall of his chest, it had to be audible. And his chest barely had a wall to thud against, it felt wide open, with a cold, electric wind blowing straight through. He was a core of stunned terror.

Daisy was stirring now, pushing up on one elbow, turning her head to one side, then the other.

Don’t move,
Erik thought. A fleeting image of her crossed wrists in the small of her back. In his mind he seized them, held them tight, held her down. His body hard on top of hers in the dark, shielding her.
Don’t move. Lie down. Stay still.

She could still die. He had to get to her before she died. He had to be there if she died. He had to get past James.

In the aisle, facing the stage, James stood still, the gun at his side. Out of the corner of his eye, Erik saw something move. To his right, in one of the rows, a brown dome of a head, stealthily creeping along, a long-fingered hand on the tops of the seats.

Kees’s face rose. He looked to James, then looked back and saw Erik. He widened his eyes.

“Get down,” Erik mouthed. Kees’s head immediately sunk. The teacher obeying the student.

Obeying the alpha male.

Erik’s hand went into his pocket. His fingers closed around a flattened copper penny.

“You bring out the best in people,” David had told him. “Haven’t you ever noticed everyone calms down around you?”

I am the alpha male.

“You’re one of the most decent human beings I’ve ever met,” James had said. “Your father doesn’t deserve you as a son.”

My father doesn’t know where I am,
Erik thought. Silently, he moved down a few rows. He glanced at the brass letters on the sides of the aisle seats. O. N. M. He leaned against the side of the seat. Swallowing hard, he took his fist out of his pocket and gazed down at the medallion in his palm. “James,” he said. The air was thick and resistant at the back of his head as he looked up.

James’s head flicked around.

“James,” Erik said again, making his gaze level, willing his voice to be steady. “Come talk to me.”

James didn’t move. He had shaved off his goatee. It ought to have softened his face, made him young and approachable. But looking back over his shoulder, he appeared hard and remote. Drained of all empathy and human emotion. Not a flicker of recognition as his eyes slid up and down Erik’s body.

Erik couldn’t speak. His throat was clenched.

“You don’t have to do this,” Kees said then.

Erik didn’t dare look back. He imagined Kees rising from behind the row of seats. Not quite standing. Just showing himself. A slightly irritated dread swirled through Erik’s stomach. It made him feel stern.
Get down,
he thought.
You can’t lead here.

But Kees went on speaking. “You can stop, James.” His voice was soft. Deep and gentle. And dangerously useless.

Stand down,
Erik thought.

James’s upper lip twitched. Then his whole mouth twisted in contempt. He whipped around fast. A shot rang out. Kees howled. Erik squeezed his eyelids and tightened his jaw as he heard Kees fall between the rows. But Erik did not turn away from James. He stayed still, leaning against side of the seats.

When he opened his eyes again, James stood over him, breathing hard, pointing the gun at Erik’s face. The muzzle was squared at the top, rounded at the bottom. Two circles on its blunt end. One open. One closed. One for death. One for decoration.

Erik shifted his gaze to look James in the eye. He was trembling all over, and he fought not to show he knew it. He set his teeth. Slowly he raised his fist and opened it, showing James what he had. What he had carried with him all this time. He swallowed hard and said, “You’re still in my pocket.”

James blinked then. A bit of clarity seemed to come into his face. Erik kept his eyes steady, acted as if he were standing, towering over James instead of crouched on the floor at his feet. His heart was exploding but he stayed still. He looked at James and tried to think through to him, tried to get James to take him.

I am human valium. Take me. I am the alpha. I lead this pack. I have you in my pocket. I am decent and good. You always liked me. Let me lead. Let me calm you again. You don’t have to do this.

James blinked again, rapidly. Keeping the gun fixed on Erik, he turned his head and looked back at the stage. His eyes swept the rows of seats and then came back to rest on Erik, who still held up his palm with a bit of flattened copper in it.

“This is yours,” Erik said. “This is the best of you and you gave it to me. I had it in my pocket. I didn’t forget.”

James licked his lips, staring down into Erik’s hand.

“The best of me is on the stage,” Erik said, tilting his head. “And I’m going there. She needs my best and I need to be in her pocket. Do you understand?”

James’s eyes swiveled to the side. Then closed. He opened them and a stream of tears fell down his haggard face. He nodded, staring off to his right.

“Thank you, James.” Erik whispered.

James looked at him, his expression startled by this courtesy, just as it had been when Erik offered him tea nearly two weeks ago. His surprise dissolved into a terrible anguish. The nodding head began to shake. He backed away two steps, his free hand to his brow. Frantic, he whirled to the stage, whipped back around and aimed one last time at Erik.

His teeth set together, Erik stared down the omega male.

I lead this pack. Not you.

He did not blink. Not at the double-holed muzzle of the gun. And not when James, his face contorted and tear-streaked, bent his arm to set the muzzle under his own chin.

When the gun fired, only then did Erik close his eyes.