BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD
CHAPTER 8-ACCOMODATIONS
JUSTIN’S POV
an enchanted moment
and it sees me through
There was something cosmically evil about having to listen to Maya fuck her boyfriend, Brian, the night of the same day that you’d actually fucked your Brian. You tried turning up your television, wearing headphones, and putting your head inside your pillowcase. You even tried to jack off in sync with them, but that just made it worse.
“Brian.”
You ended up rummaging through your closet until you found it: one of Brian’s twenty thousand black shirts that you’d sort of stolen and kept in a Ziploc bag for moments such as this. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Brian had whispered in your ear that final night as you lay underneath him, “I know you took my shirt, Sunshine.”
“Shhh.”
“It took you five years to graduate from underwear theft to outerwear theft. Bravo.”
“I left you my posse shirt.”
“I’d rather have your posse panties.”
You’d walked commando through the airport that night hoping that no one decided to search you.
****************
there are worse things I could do,
than go with a boy or two
When Harper showed up at your door the next morning, you had your duffle bag in your hand. Walking anywhere with Harper was annoying because she either walked ahead of you or constantly tapped you with her arm. When you got to Daniel’s, to your new studio, he was long gone. Daniel started his sessions at six twenty in the morning for what he called his ‘commuter patients.’ You called and left him a message: ”Hey. Listen, my roommate’s boyfriend is staying with us for the week, so if it’s okay with you, I’d like to stay here, just for the week. If it’s not, just let me know and I’ll make other arrangements.” He called you back forty-five minutes later and said it was fine.
Harper mumbled under her breath as she unpacked her supplies, “Like he was gonna say ‘no.’”
“Don’t start.”
She made a production out of zipping her lip.
The two of you got quiet about half an hour later having unpacked enough stuff to actually get to work. You sat down at your computer and e-doodled. Harper was humming to herself, a sign that she was flowing. After nothing was coming to you, you went out front on Daniel’s stoop and smoked a cigarette.
You stared down at your sneakers and thought of Brian’s shoes from the day before, how they were perfectly polished, black and shiny. How there wasn’t a hair out of place on his head. Seeing him in that suit had stirred up something inside you. Something vulnerable, something that felt brand new even though it wasn’t. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but you wanted it to go either go away or channel through you, and it wouldn’t. It insisted on staying put.
I’ll see you in your dreams.
****************
heart and soul,
I fell in love with you heart and soul
Daniel came home from work that afternoon with his arms full of groceries. “I thought I’d cook dinner.”
You helped him put the groceries away, “Sounds good.”
“So how was your first day in your new studio?” he wanted to know.
“Fine. I think Harper made a lot more progress than I did, but it was fine.”
“My day was like that, too. Not one breakthrough.”
You laughed, “It’s a little bit of a stretch, art to psychiatry. Don’t you think?”
“Not really. Getting people to see the parts of themselves that they hide is an art. I’m over-simplifying, but…” The phone rang and interrupted him. “Can you get that? My hands are wet.”
“Sure.” It was his answering service. You handed him the phone, “It’s your service.”
“Shit.” He took the phone from you, “Yes, this is Dr. Cartwright. Okay. Okay. I’ll call in some Atavan, and I’ll follow up with her tomorrow. Thanks.” He disappeared into his office to make the call and returned to the kitchen, taking the broccoli out of your hands.
“Everything okay?”
“Delayed breakthrough. Happens sometimes. A side effect of psycho-analysis.”
“Oh.” You started cutting up carrots for salad and he asked you if you washed them, “I rinsed them off.”
“Give them to me. Carrots are filthy. Here, chop the tomatoes.” You switched with him and started cutting a tomato. You kept waiting for him to give you his opinion about how the tomato should be chopped, but he didn’t. He just scrubbed the carrots. When he finished and starting chopping them, you started laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“Didn’t you ever see that episode of Frasier where Niles is chopping vegetables or something in the kitchen to the tune of Heart and Soul?”
“Of course.”
“You remind me of Niles. I just realized that.”
“Yes, but in the end, Niles got the girl.” You stared at him as he went back to the carrots
……
……
You could tell by the vigor with which he was chopping them that there was something bothering him. Nobody chopped carrots with that much intensity. You didn’t have to be a shrink to see that. So you asked him,
“What’s bothering you?”
He turned off the water and turned to you, wet carrot in hand, “I’m in love with you.” Your stomach dropped into your sneakers.
“Daniel.”
He laughed when you said his name, “And I know you don’t love me. That’s one of the few times I’ve even heard you say my name.”
You laid your knife on the cutting board, “I’ve never lied to you.”
“I know. I lied to myself. That’s a hundred times worse, believe me.” He walked into the dining room and started laying out silverware and plates with purpose.
You broke lettuce into a big bowl and asked him, “You want me to leave?”
“No…I should, but I don’t.”
You walked into the dining room and sat the completed bowl of salad on the table, “I’m going outside. I need a cigarette.”
When you came back in, Daniel was sitting on the sofa in the living room flipping through the most recent issue of American Home.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” you asked him, sitting down at the table.
He got up from the couch and came over to sit down, “I was waiting for you.”
The two of you ate salad in silence.
****************
it's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer
that we got this far
You were about halfway through with your salad when you got the courage to break the silence between the two of you, “Why did you offer me this space if you knew you felt this way?”
“I suppose because I’m a masochist.”
“Well, I can’t stay here.”
“Yes, you can. You’re not going back to that rat hole. That place is disgusting—"
I want you safe.
……
……
“I don’t think we should fuck anymore.”
He took a sip of his wine, “I agree.” But you knew he didn’t.
……
……
“Daniel, I’m sorry. I feel like shit.”
“Don’t.”
“Right. It’s just-- I never meant for this to happen.”
“I’m going to heat up some chicken.” He got up from the table and started moving around the kitchen. You got up and leaned in the doorway.
“Daniel, I’m serious.”
“I know you are.” He put the chicken in the oven. “Come here.” You followed him into the living room where you both sat on the sofa. You felt like you should uncross your arms, but they just wouldn’t. Daniel straightened his arm along the back of the sofa and rested his fingers on your shoulder, “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. Part of the reason I fell so hard for you is because you’re so honest, so uncomplicated. I’ve known this for a while, that it wasn’t going to work out, I just couldn’t—"
“You think I’m uncomplicated?”
Daniel looked you right in the eye, “Yes. I think you’re uncomplicated. I think you feel things in their purest form. You probably always have. You’re young, but it’s not completely a product of your age.”
“I’m not—"
“Let me finish. There’s nothing worse than loving someone who doesn’t love you. Than trying to think of what you can do, what you can say, to change that. It’s all-consuming. Hopefully, you’ll never have to experience it.”
Your arms suddenly uncrossed, “I know exactly how that feels.”
Look, I told you, I’m not your lover, I’m not your partner, I’m not even your friend. You’re not anything to me.
Daniel smiled at you, his kind doctor smile, the same one he’d sported the night you met him—and a dead giveaway that he was about to change the subject, “You know, several of my patients have commented on your mural in my office. They really seem to like it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, they often ask me what it means or if it has a name.”
“Which it doesn’t.”
“That’s what I tell them. I tell them it means whatever they want it to mean.”
“What do you think it means?" you asked, resting your elbow on the back of the sofa.
He patted you on the shoulder, “I charge for that.”
You cut your eyes at him, and he laughed at you as he walked over to the television and popped in a tape, “Frasier. I’ve got the whole series on tape.”
You got comfortable on the sofa and within ten minutes, you were both laughing, “You know, it’s completely immaterial whether or not Niles gets the girl—"
“Because he’s gay,” Daniel added.
“Exactly.”
The chicken burned.
****************
and it seems to me you lived your life
like a candle in the wind
Harper was usually at the studio around nine in the morning. She let herself in and wandered into Daniel’s guest room where you were pulling on your clothes. She stood in the doorway, ignoring the fact that you were bitching at her about privacy.
“We have to go back today. Before lunch.”
You knew what she meant, “We do? Why today?”
“Full moon last night.”
“Oh. Wow. I never put that together.”
“Let’s just go have breakfast somewhere or something. I don’t feel like working.”
You could tell by the look on her face that she was serious. Her mood always changed so drastically on the days she knew she was going to see Alan. As the two of you walked to the coffee shop, she didn’t walk too fast or bump your arm or anything. She was a million miles away, almost stepping in front of moving car as you went to cross the street.
“Harper, watch where you’re going.” She didn’t eat much at the coffee shop, mostly just pushed her food around her plate, “Are you okay?”
She twirled her hair between her index and middle finger and sighed, “Yeah.”
“You’re worried? That he won’t show?”
“Yeah. He always has, just like clockwork, but I always worry. Something could’ve happened to him since the last time I saw him, and I wouldn’t even know.”
“I’m sure he’s okay.” It seemed like a really stupid thing to say, since it was basically a lie. You weren’t sure of anything.
The two of you walked back to your old studio. Once you got there, Harper announced, “Well, I guess now we just wait.” She sat down, leaning back against the graffiti-covered wall across from the door. You could see the new occupant of your old place inside. He was setting up a projector or something. Harper’s toes flexed in her sandals as she told you she meant to paint her toenails last night, but she forgot. “God, they need it.” You offered her a cigarette, “Too hot to smoke.”
Harper suggested that you take turns naming all of the places you’d ever had sex to kill time. You won by a landslide in five minutes.
“You’ve had sex in an elevator?” she asked incredulously.
“Several. There’s an elevator in Brian’s building.”
“And in a diner?”
“Anyplace there’s a bathroom, you can pretty much figure we’ve fucked there.”
“Next time, we’ll make it harder. You’ll have to name them in alphabetical order.”
The Adonis, alley, annex of the GLC, Babylon, backroom, bathroom, baths, bed, chair, closet, corvette, Debbie’s, desk, diner, elevator, floor, Gravel Pit, hotels, Jeep, Kinnetik, kitchen, Lindsay’s, loft, mansion, office, shower, VIP lounge……
“I’m ready. I can do it now.”
“Go.”
“The Adonis, alley, annex of the GLC, Babylon, backroom, Alan.”
“You fucked up.”
“No, here he comes.” You pointed to him walking toward the two of you. You couldn’t believe she was right. He was just like clockwork. “Can you explain to me how he knows there was a full moon when he doesn’t even know what day it is?”
“It was always a big deal to my mom when we were kids, and I think he can feel it. He’s very in tune with things like that.” Harper got up off the ground and started walking toward him, “Hey.”
He smiled, “Josie.” They hugged when they got to each other. You noticed Alan’s fingernails. They were really long. Harper told him he needed a bath. “Duh.”
She pulled him by the hand over to the sidewalk in front of the studio, “Okay, but first we have to talk.”
He laughed, “Am I in trouble already?” He seemed more lucid today than usual. Alan looked at you and sort of smiled. “Hey, Waffle.”
“Hey.”
Harper held his hand as she talked to him, “This isn’t my studio anymore. I’ve moved.”
Alan’s face immediately tensed, “With Dad? You moved back in with Dad?” He started to pull away from her. Now, you knew why she was holding on to him.
She pointed to you and laughed, “No, with Waffle. We’re going to take you and show you where it is, so don’t come here anymore looking for me.”
Alan looked in the window at the man inside, “Who’s that?”
“He’s the new renter.” Just then the guy looked out the window, straight at Harper. Two seconds later, the door opened. He looked like a cross between Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace. He was kind of hot.
Alan seemed to panic as he came face to face with the man, “I’m not going to bother you.”
“Can I help you?”
Harper stood in front of Alan, and extended her hand, “Hi, I’m Harper. My friend and I used to rent this space.”
“Okay. Is there something I can do for you?” He had on this brown suede jacket shirt thing that you wanted to steal when he wasn’t looking. His jacket and his hair were almost the exact same color.
“This is my brother, Alan.” He tried to look at Alan, but Alan wouldn’t meet his eyes. Harper continued, “He’s a drifter, and every once in a while, he’d come here to see me. So, today I’m just showing him that I don’t work here anymore, so he’ll understand, and he won’t bother you.”
“I won’t bother you,” Alan said to the cement.
The guy’s face seemed to soften, “I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.” He nodded at you and you sort of waved.
Harper was smiling like she was a cruise director or something, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sam. We don’t need to hang around or anything, so we’re gonna go. Thanks for not being a dick about all of this.”
Sam kind of laughed, “I’m not usually a dick, so, um, thanks, I guess.”
Harper looked embarrassed. It dawned on you that that was the first time you’d ever seen her blush, “Yeah, well, okay. We gotta go.” She backed up into Alan and stepped on his foot.
“Ow.”
Harper pushed him a little, like he was the only reason she couldn’t get moving, “Come on, let’s go.”
You looked at Sam as Harper started walking away, “Um, bye. Nice to meet you, Sam.”
Sam looked right through you like you were transparent, “It was nice to meet you, Harper…..Come back sometime when you can stay longer.”
****************
but I know what I'm needing
and I don't want to waste more time
Sam, it turns out, was a documentary filmmaker, and according to Harper, “He’s so fucking amazing, Justin. You just wouldn’t believe how raw and honest his work is.”
“Oh, I’d believe it.”
“And he wants to make a documentary about the homeless. He wants Alan to take him to the tunnels.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but I told him no way. First of all, he’d never get his camera back, and second of all, I explained to him how they don’t exactly want visitors down there.”
It seemed like a pretty scary idea to you. “So, he changed his mind? He’s not going to do it?”
Harper shrugged, “I don’t know. We kind of quit talking about it and started—"
“Fucking?”
Harper grinned, “Yeah.”
You were seeing less and less of Harper since the two of you had met Sam a month ago, but she seemed deliriously happy. You’d gone out with them a couple of times, but you were feeling more and more like the third wheel. Daniel had joined you the last time, the four of you having dinner at a snooty restaurant that he liked. The two of you felt like you were there by yourselves; Harper and Sam were completely wrapped up in each other. Daniel commented on their public display of affection as he reviewed the desert menu, “If we got up and left right now, they wouldn’t even notice. Will you split this chocolate thing with me?”
“Sure.” The two of you ate dark, decadent chocolate cake minutes later. “She is his dessert menu.” Daniel agreed. You parted ways with them outside the restaurant, turning back and looking at them before you and Daniel turned the corner. They were making out against a building.
Daniel’s hands were in his pockets as he walked, “Kids, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll walk you home and take a cab back.”
“Okay.” The next day was Saturday and Daniel asked you if you were going to come to the studio. “Maybe. Depends how I feel in the morning.”
“Well, I won’t be there. Jonathon and I are going shopping.”
“You two are always shopping.”
“It’s Jonathon’s anti-drug. It’s how he shakes off the week. So, if you come, you’ll have the place to yourself. We’ll be antiquing, so we’ll be gone all day, trust me.”
“Okay, thanks.”
The next day you went to your studio at about ten in the morning and started a brand new canvas. There were visions of hard fucks, brick walls and cold, darkened alleys dancing in your head.
****************
you see, I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue
The mural was finished a month later. It was the first vertical mural that you’d ever painted. You spent a lot of your time on a ladder while you were working on it and painted a lot of it at night. Daniel would often stand outside the door to your studio around eleven o’clock and tell you to have a good night; he was going to bed.
“There’s leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry, Justin.”
“Thanks.”
“And I started a pot of coffee for you.”
“Okay.”
Daniel refused to let you walk home when you’d finish around three in the morning, so you usually just slept in his guest room, and went home the next day. For some reason, your muse had become a night owl. You called Harper the night it was done and asked her to come over and take a look at it.
“Justin, it’s one in the morning.” You’d looked at your watch.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I’m just so done. I had no idea what time it was.”
“It’s okay. I’ll come by tomorrow, ‘kay?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
When you saw Harper the next day, you apologized for calling her in the middle of the night.
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not like we were asleep.”
“I figured.” Harper was pacing back and forth in front of the mural. “Why’d you answer the phone if you were fucking?”
“Because it was you and it was the middle of the night. You scared me, you ding bat.”
“Oh, right.”
She finally stopped pacing, “Whoa.”
“Whoa? What does ‘whoa’ mean?”
“Whoa means whoa.”
“That’s so helpful.” Harper lay down on the floor and stared at it. Her hair fanned on the linoleum. “Do you want me to get you a pillow?”
“No, smart ass. I want to know which of these figures is you.”
“Neither.”
“Bull shit.”
“Well, then I’m probably the shorter one, Einstein.” You lay down beside her on the floor, stuffing your hands behind your head.
“What are you calling it?”
You turned your head and looked at her, ”Three a.m.”
“Hmm, I’ve never seen two guys fuck in an alley while wearing tuxedos. This is a first.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not sure they’re fucking.”
“Well, then, what are they doing?”
You had to think about it. You weren’t exactly sure.
“I think they’re dancing.”
“To what? What are they dancing to?” she wanted to know.
“I have no idea. I can’t hear it.”
****************
DANIEL CARTWRIGHT’S POV
and it was late in the evening
The Sunday night before Labor Day in 2007, you invited Justin to stay over and watch movies. You ordered a bunch of appetizers from a local restaurant and the two of you watched Bette Davis. Jonathon called in the middle of your marathon to see what you were up to, and when you told him, he said, “You two are the biggest fags I know. Have fun.”
After you were both sufficiently fed and mostly drunk, you ended up watching Psycho, the old one. You kept looking over at Justin because he kept gasping. You stopped the movie at one point because he had to piss. He made you pull back the shower curtain in the bathroom before he’d even go in there.
“Don’t leave me in here by myself.” When you escorted him back to the sofa and told him that maybe you shouldn’t watch the rest of it, Justin refused, saying he needed ‘closure.’ You rolled your eyes. As soon as the credits ran, he looked at you, “I’m not sleeping by myself.”
You realized that he was a little drunker than you thought when you had to help him up the stairs. He yanked his sweat pants off and climbed into bed, “There’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to sleep.”
“Justin, it’s just a movie about a guy with some issues about his mother. That’s all.”
He pulled the covers up over his head, “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it……Shit, it’s even darker under here.” His blond head re-emerged, “I can’t believe you made me watch that.”
“I didn’t make you.” You rolled over to go to sleep and were about to drift off when he tapped you on the shoulder. “What?”
“Do you think Norman Bates was gay?”
“I think Norman Bates was extremely disturbed. Being a homosexual was the least of his problems.”
“True.”
……
……
“Daniel, I can’t sleep.”
You rolled back over, “Do you want me to turn a light on or something? Read you a story? Get you some warm milk?”
“Milk would be good.” You started to get out of bed, “Wait, no. Don’t leave me…….Can I just have some Valium or something?”
You laughed as you got back under the covers, “No. You’re drunk. Bad idea.”
“Shit.”
……
……
“Okay, tell me a story.”
You sighed, “Okay. Once upon a time there was this very, very talented artist named Justin Taylor, and he had a huge secret that nobody knew.”
“He was secretly, independently wealthy?” he asked you, scrunching his pillow.
“No, he was a chicken shit. The end.”
“You know, doctors are supposed to have compassion for people who are suffering. It’s part of your Hypocritical Oath or some shit.”
“Hippocratic, not hypocritical.”
“Whatever, you’re just not very hippocratical either. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I could sing you a lullaby.” Obviously, you were joking.
“Okay, sing Yellow Submarine. That’s what my mom used to sing to me when I was little because I loved that movie. We should’ve watched that movie instead of—"
“That’s not even a lullaby.”
“Sing it,” he demanded, closing his eyes.
“Fine…..In the town where I was born, lived a man who sailed to sea, and he told us of his life In the land of submarines….
He was asleep before you got to the chorus. Jonathon was right. You were the two biggest fags on the planet.
****************
the arc of a love affair,
rainbows in the high desert air
Someone was walking up your stairs at nine o’clock the next morning. It took you a minute to shake off the fuzz from the night before and realize that it had to be Harper. You could tell she was walking toward Justin’s bedroom because you could hear her humming in the hall. She’d checked the studio for him first. You whispered, “He’s in here,” and then she was standing in your doorway.
She took one look at the two of you in bed together and her eyes grew twice as big, “Uh oh.”
“It’s not what you think. We stayed up late watching scary movies. He was spooked.”
She came in and sat on your bed, “Well, wake him up. I’ve got to talk to him.” You shook Justin a little and he snored and turned over.
“Sorry. He’s out cold.”
Harper looked around your bedroom and then her nervous eyes rested back on your face, “All right, well, you can tell him when he wakes up.”
“Tell him what?” She wasn’t making any sense.
“That I’m getting married.”
You shook Justin harder, “Hey, wake up.”
****************
JUSTIN'S POV
the bride was contagious
she burned like a bride
Harper’s wedding invitations left something to be desired:
Josie Harper and Sam Collins
request the honor of your presence
at their wedding.
Not this full moon, but the next one.
P.S. Wear whatever you want.
RSVP to harperandsam@gmail.com
“Harper, you cannot send these out. These are ridiculous,” you told her.
“No, they’re not. They’re straight and to the point.”
“Do you realize you’re going to be ‘Josie Harper-Collins.’”
“Of course, what else would I be?”
“That’s a publisher! Like a major publisher.”
“Really? Cool.”
Overlooking the obvious etiquette flaws in her invitation, you pointed out to her that they didn’t tell anybody the date, time, or location of the ceremony.
“Oh, shit. I forgot.” She grabbed the invitation back from you and called Sam, “Hey, what time are we getting married?” She wrote two forty-five on the card. “Why two forty-five?” She laughed at his answer and hung up the phone.
“Why two forty-five?”
“Because he’s always fifteen minutes late for everything.”
“Give me that,” you grabbed the invitation from her. “I’ll fix this. Jesus.”
“Planning shit just isn’t my thing, you know?”
“Apparently.” You fired up your computer and started to create a wedding invitation for her. “You need to pick a date.” Harper said she had to have a lunar calendar to do that. You found one for her on the web.
“Um, okay, October eleventh.”
“That’s a Thursday. Nobody gets married on a Thursday.”
“God, all these rules. Fine, Saturday, the thirteenth.”
You shook your head at her, “Nobody gets married on the thirteenth.”
“I do.”
“You’re fucking crazy.”
“I want Alan to be there. This way we’ll see him on the eleventh, and we’ll have two days to make him presentable.”
That night, Daniel told Harper that she should get married in the studio since she wasn’t interested in a church. Harper thought that sounded like fun. Daniel looked at you and said, “I’ll cater it. Stop panicking.”
You crossed that off your list.
The two of you went back upstairs and you whipped her up a quickie invitation that would have to do.
Admittedly, Harper wasn’t hard to please. She made you print one out right then so she could cross out three o’clock and write “2:45” on it. “I’ll give this one to Sam,” she said, stuffing it in her purse.
“If he needs an invitation to show up at his own wedding, Harper, you’re in trouble.”
****************
ALAN HARPER’S POV
and I’ll jump, and hey,
I may even show ‘em my handstand
August, 1989
The only time that Harper wore socks with her sandals was when you were going to see your mother. And it wasn’t because they were lacey or because she wanted to look pretty; it was because she couldn’t wait to slide down the long, gray corridor outside your mother’s room. It was your usual pastime when you went to visit her at the hospital. You didn’t really know why your mother lived at the Holy Cross Hospital, but somehow you always got the feeling that you weren’t supposed to know. There was something about it that was a secret.
But it was never a secret what you and Josie were doing in the hallway while you waited for your mother to come back from her treatment. You tried to be quiet as you raced Josie down the hall in your socks, smacked the radiator, turned around and tried to beat her back to the crack in the floor at the other end. Nurse Tate, the one that always gave you three pieces of candy and not just one, was your favorite. And Josie’s. She was big and black and her eyes always looked like licorice to you. Nurse Tate almost always had licorice. And she almost always had something to say about your father.
You and Josie would cheer when you saw Nurse Tate rounding the corner with your mother in her wheelchair. Your mother had been at Holy Cross for a long time before you realized that she’d never be smiling when she came around the corner; she rarely even looked up. You became fascinated and comforted by the grin on Nurse Tate’s face. She was always glad to see you.
“Well, if it isn’t Josie and Alley-oop,” she’d always say to you both as you held the door open to your mother’s room. You and Josie would always stand on your tiptoes against the door so Nurse Tate wouldn’t run over you over with the wheelchair. “D’your father just drop you off outside again?” she’d ask.
“No, he walked us inside,” you’d lie. You didn’t want Nurse Tate to stop smiling.
Josie was too busy staring at the dirt on the bottom of her socks to correct you, “Look, Alan,” she’d say, holding a foot up in your face, “They’re almost black!”
Sometimes your mother would mumble, “Ruin your socks,” and sometimes she didn’t say anything. Mostly, she just stared at her hands as Nurse Tate put in her back in bed.
“Your mother’s had a rough day, you two. Don’t be too crazy.” You would hop back and forth, on one foot and then the other, in front of your mother’s blank face, seeing if you could get a reaction.
“She’s drooling again, Tate,” Josie would point out, taking the cloth out of Nurse Tate’s hand, “I can do it. Let me do it.” She’d wipe your mother’s leaking mouth, “There, Mom. See? I’m a nurse, too.”
“You’re a mess,” your mother replied, and you both took that as enough recognition to begin performing any one of the skits you and Josie would act out when you got home from school. Josie always made you be the pet, or the student, or the patient. You were never an owner, a teacher, or a doctor. Once you tried to be the nurse to her doctor, and Josie promptly told you that there was no such thing as a boy nurse. So, you’d change your name to ‘Alice,’ pretend to be a girl, so she’d let you pretend to be the nurse. She couldn’t argue with you then.
After about your third performance, which by that time was just the two of you fighting with each other over who got to hold the toilet paper roll you were using as a microphone, Nurse Tate would tell you to settle down, “Your mom’s tired. Let’s try to be a little bit quieter, okay?”
“But I’m on American Bandstand,” Josie would whine, attempting to impress everyone by doing a split in her slippery socks. That always made her dress fly up and you could see which underwear she was wearing that day. It was Josie’s signature to wear her ‘days of the week’ panties on all the wrong days.
“Good lord,” Nurse Tate would always say, “I hope it’s not Monday, or I’m in trouble.”
The only person who was ever in trouble on those days, as far as you could tell, was your father. He stood outside the hospital, leaning against a utility pole, smoking a cigarette. You knew as soon as he finished it that he’d tell you both to go inside, “Go ask for your mother.” The two of you would run to the automatic doors, looking back at your father as they opened. He was always smashing his cigarette into the brick sidewalk, “Go. Go on. I’ll be back in an hour.” And the two of you would disappear inside the cool lobby, the automatic doors whooshing to a close above your heads.
Sometimes if your mother had an accident when they were shocking her, Nurse Tate would shoo you both out into the hall so she could change your mother. The smell of urine began to fill a void inside you. But in the hallway again, Josie never missed a beat. She was lining up on the black crack in the floor and counting off, “Okay. Ready…….Set……..SLOW!”
You jumped the starting mark too soon and had to start one square behind her. And you fell for it every single time.
It was those rules, that day, of Josie’s that had made you start all the way around the corner the time she finally said, “GO!” You flew around the corner to catch up to her and ran smack into a door.
Your father was pissed when he came to pick the two of you up at the end of the hour, and you weren’t outside. Thirty minutes later, the two of you emerged with Nurse Tate. Josie’s socks were in her hand, and a three by three bandage was on your forehead. “What the hell happened to you?” your father wanted to know.
Nurse Tate answered him before you could, a firm hand wrapped over your shoulder, “He ran into a door, Mr. Harper.”
Your father’s eyes narrowed, but only at Josie, “Why weren’t you watching your brother?”
“It’s not her job to watch him, Mr. Harper. It’s yours.” Your father started to say something, but Nurse Tate cut him off, “A six year old is not responsible for a five year old.”
He ignored her, “What’d they do to you?” he asked you.
“I got stitches.” You would have been proud of them if you didn’t think you were going to be punished.
“And a lollipop and a balloon, but I popped it by mistake,” added Josie.
“It was green. The balloon,” you told him. “They didn’t have any more green ones.” You felt like if you kept spewing out pointless details, it would somehow diffuse his anger. “Nurse Tate held my hand when they fixed my head.”
“There was blood all over the floor!” Josie announced in a misguided attempt to help the situation.
Your father wouldn’t look at Nurse Tate, “Well, tell the nurse thank you. We gotta go.” You turned around and threw your arms around her wide body, burying your face in her white pants. She always smelled like baby powder and rubbing alcohol.
“Be careful, Alley-oop. Your head,” she warned. You’d already forgotten. Nurse Tate patted you on the back, and Josie thanked her for putting her hair in a ponytail. Your father wasn’t very good at ponytails.
“Get in the car, guys.” The two adults’ eyes met for a brief second. “Tell her you’ll see her next week.”
“And you with them, Mr. Harper. She’s your wife. She’s not gonna get better without your help.”
“She’s not gonna get any better,” your father said, closing the two of you in the back seat. “Doesn’t matter what I do.”
There were cross words between them after that that you couldn’t hear. You watched Nurse Tate’s hands fly up in the air when your father walked around to the driver’s side of the car. When he opened the door to get inside you heard her, “And for Christ’s sake, Mr. Harper, they need her.”
Your father cranked the car and blasted the radio. Josie waved at Nurse Tate with both hands as you drove away, “Blow her a kiss, Alan. I’ll give you a quarter.”
You did it, and Josie told you, “Too bad, so sad. I had my fingers crossed.”
“Dad! Josie lied to me. She’s supposed to give me a –" Your father tossed a quarter over his shoulder and it bounced off your chest. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Never trust a woman, son, even if she is your sister.”
****************
sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair
A month later, your father brought your mother home, against her doctor’s orders. For years you tried to convince yourself that it because he wanted what was best for her, that he loved her and missed her, but you knew deep down that it was because he was tired of being harassed and lectured by the hospital staff. Bringing you to see your mother once a week was all the burden your father could handle.
And that never made sense to you because your father was in charge of train maintenance for the Atlanta subway system. He was a supervisor. The big cheese. He was ‘large and in charge’ Josie would always say when your father boasted about someone he had to discipline or fire. He was good at that. You were too young to understand that this was his way of dealing with everything: a snap decision that usually sent somebody packing. Less than twenty years later, that person would be you.
But for now, your mother was home, and very little changed. Josie still cooked standing on a chair and your father still put you to bed every night. Your mother seemed more distant that she’d ever been. It wasn’t uncommon for you to hear their harsh voices at night, when they thought the two of you were asleep,
“I need to go back, James. I need my medicine. I need to see my doctor.”
“You belong in this house with your family, not in some doctor’s office.”
“Why do you care? You don’t love me. You don’t need me. You don’t—"
“You don’t know what I need, Ruth. You don’t know shit. Go to sleep.”
When you woke up in the middle of the night because you’d wet your bed, you’d find your mother sitting in the dark in the den in front of the television. I Love Lucy or Mash or Taxi would be playing in the background while your mother wrote and wrote and wrote in her journal.
“What’s wrong Alley? D’you wet the bed?” she asked, without even turning around. She knew you were there.
“Yeah.”
She would close her journal and walk over to you, her white nightgown almost transparent, her hands soft and dry on your face, “C’mon, let’s clean you up.” She would smile at you as she helped you pull your clean pajamas over your head. You could do it yourself, but you didn’t want to. Once you were clean and dry, she would tuck you into bed with Josie, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
“I won’t.” You’d never seen a bed bug.
Josie would almost always wake up, yawning in your face, “D’you pee on yourself?”
“Yeah.”
You’d watch your mother strip your bed with an efficiency that always impressed you. She’d walk out of the room after kissing you goodnight, your urine-soaked sheets balled up in her arms. You’d hear her stuff them in the washer. She’d wait until morning to run it so she wouldn’t wake your father.
Those twenty minutes alone with your mother almost every night became something you looked forward to. When she committed suicide four years later, you were the one who found her, lying in a tub of bloody water with a bottle of aspirin scattered all over the floor.
You never wet the bed again.
****************
everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance,
everybody thinks its true
The difference as far as you could tell between plagiarism and tribute was location. ‘Upstairs,’ above ground, it was considered bad taste at best and a crime at worst to copy someone’s work for the consumption of others. But down here, ‘downstairs,’ beneath the streets, it was admired, a tribute and a pastime all in one. Anytime you doubted it, Stitch would convince you again. He was good at that. You stuck with him because he seemed extremely smart and was never phased about the condition of his life. He chose it, and as he always reminded you, so did you.
“To believe that life just happens to you only weakens you, Al. Never tell anyone that you ‘ended up here,’ like it’s a bad place to be. Tell them that this is where you live, where you thrive. You have a family of hundreds and a community that believes in you.”
Stitch would’ve been an amazing preacher if he believed in a higher power. But he didn’t. He believed in what he could see, what he could create, and in honoring those that enriched the lives of people in his ‘community.’ When nothing else made sense to you, you believed what he believed. It was easier than wondering. He took the picture out of your hand and unrolled it, studying it from every angle, a pencil between his fingers, and asked you, “What’s his tag, again? The guy that drew this?”
“Eggo.”
“Eggo?”
“I think it means the waffles.”
“Hmm, that’s kinda cool,” Stitch said, drawing a tic-tac-toe symbol on the bottom right corner. The copy of the sketch of you and Josie sleeping after she’d cut your hair had been living inside the inner pocket of your jacket for weeks. “We still need yellow paint and probably some gray and some black,” he reminded you.
“I know. I’ll get it.”
“Once we get all the stuff we need, it’ll only take me three, maybe four weeks, to do this.” Stitch pointed at the wall across from his bunk, “And you can help me. We gotta whitewash that whole wall first.”
You couldn’t wait. Stitch had promised to recreate this picture for you “in living color” since the day you’d brought it home. He told you that you needed to come up with a tag, a signature for yourself, and eventually you settled on an “A” with a loop circling through it.
“What’s that, man?”
“That’s an ‘alley-oop.’”
“Oh, right. Makes sense. I like it. Only if you look at it wrong, it looks like a heart.”
“That’s what I want.”
“Okay, then I’m gonna put Eggo in like this.”
And then he added himself, the eye of a needle, one of the many that had sewn him back together:
You couldn’t wait to get started on this mural, and neither could Stitch, “The days will go by so much faster when we’re working on this. And everybody will see it because of where we’re going to put it. Right smack on that wall that everybody sees. You’re gonna be famous, Alley-oop.” You were just glad that Stitch was excited about something. It was a lot better than when he was fighting off demons.
When Stitch had returned from the first Gulf War, he came home to an empty house. His wife and daughter and everything they owned were gone with no explanation. “Not even a letter. She didn’t even leave me a letter.” Instead, she left a man who fought for her freedom with none of his own. The house was in his name, the mortgage was overdue, and Stitch, who earned his nickname from being shot and injured more than anyone else in his platoon, had nothing left inside him to pull himself back up. “At least if they were dead, I’d know that they’re dead.” When Stitch came back home from the war, death seemed to be the only thing he could handle. “But even if I don’t know where she is,” Stitch would explain about his daughter, “I’m not gonna kill myself. She’d find out someday, and then, I’d be just like my wife, another bad example.”
For months after he got home, Stitch wandered the streets. “I thought I was looking for work, but I wasn’t.” He was looking for a new family. When you met him, Stitch hadn’t seen the sun in months. “Don’t need anything they got up there,” he told you the day he offered to share his small space with you. “Got everything I need right here—people I can trust and a place to sleep.” Stitch let you stay with him in return for being his link to the upstairs, for fetching anything he needed. “People’ll give you anything you want, Al. You’ve got the face of a baby.”
And it was that face and your harmless affect that charmed many a woman out of spare change and most men out of more. You knew that sometimes they were just paying you to go away, and there were plenty of times you would, even empty-handed, if your father was working on the line you were begging on. A few years after your mother died, your father brought you and Josie to New York City, ostensibly because of a new job. But when you arrived, you realized that there was no job, just a man glad to be away from a dead woman’s nosy family and two children who knew no one, including their father. Eventually he went to work and you and Josie went to school, but the two of you clung to each other and the memories of your mom. They very obviously belonged only to you and her. Your father made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want them.
Your father had a way that had developed into a habit of making things perfectly clear. When the guidance counselor at your junior high called the apartment every few nights for months, he made it perfectly clear that, “If you have something to say to me about my son, you can say it right now, on the phone.” Your counselor and your teachers and eventually the principal wanted a face-to-face meeting with your father,
“We’d like to sit down and talk about your son, about his progress, about some of the struggles he’s been having.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my son.”
The letters that came home with you were thrown in the trash. “Dad, you’re supposed to sign that, so I can bring that back.”
“You don’t need to be evaluated. I’m not signing anything.”
“Please, Dad. They’re just gonna send home another one tomorrow if I don’t bring it back.”
“What did I just say?”
“They say they’re just trying to help me. You know, ‘cause of what happened to Mom.”
Your father froze as if you’d threatened him, “Nothing happened to your mother. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with you. You don’t see them calling here about your sister, do you?”
“No.”
“Well, do the math, Alan. Straighten up. This shit is a waste of my time.”
Without your father’s permission, the school wasn’t allowed to help you. Back then, you wondered how soon after your mother died your father stopped loving you. Now, as you roam the lines looking for a kind face or an easy opportunity, you wonder if he knows that you’re up there at least once a week, wandering around his stomping ground.
Tomorrow, on your way to see Josie, you’d collect as much money as you possibly could to add to what you’d already saved. Then on your way home, showered and looking much more presentable, you’d buy as much spray paint as you could for Stitch. People were always so much nicer to you on your way home from seeing Josie, than on your way there. Once a woman’s briefcase had fallen open and blown the contents all over the sidewalk. She bought you a cup of coffee and actually sat with you in a coffee shop after you helped her pick everything up. She smelled like lilies and nine of her fingernails were perfectly polished, the tenth having broken when she tried to catch her things from blowing everywhere. She thanked you again for your help and put five dollars on the table before she left. You waited until she was long gone down the sidewalk before you stole it.
The first lesson you’d ever learned living on the streets was that money is the only equalizer.
****************
DANIEL CARTWRIGHT’S POV
I wanna kiss the bride
You knew something was up on the day of Harper’s wedding. Justin was more nervous than the bride and his anxiety was only heightened by Jonathon’s contribution to the event--‘a man of the cloth’ who’d fallen asleep on your sofa after stating, “Wake me up ten minutes before the ceremony, ‘kay?”
“Jonathon, where did you find this guy?” Justin demanded, an apron over his tux. You didn’t even know why Justin was in the kitchen. The food was catered. Everything was ready.
Jonathon answered him from the doorway, “He’s sort of one of my patients.”
“What?”
“He’s fine, Justin, he’s not crazy. He just has some issues with his mother.”
“Oh great, Harper’s being married by Norman Bates. That is just fucking perfect, Jonathon. Just fucking perfect.”
You yanked Justin back into the kitchen, “Calm down. He’s just pulling your leg. He’s not one of his patients.”
Justin whispered at you over his shoulder while he rearranged little sandwiches, “He better not be. I’ve worked too hard to make this day perfect.”
“I’m gonna stick a valium up your ass if you don’t stop stressing. You’d think this was your wedding day.”
“Well, she has no family except Alan, no close girlfriends, no mother. I am the wedding party, Daniel, or haven’t you noticed?”
“I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed,” you remarked, backing out of ground zero. “I’m going to check on the real bride.” The door swung shut before the cocktail weenie that Harper had insisted on because, ‘Oh my god, they’re so cute,’ hit you.
You looked outside on your way to the stairs, and saw Alan and Sam and Jonathon standing on the deck talking. Alan had cleaned up well in the tux you rented him, and he and Sam looked like they were getting along. When you got to the top of the stairs, you knocked on the guest room that Harper was dressing in, “Harper, I brought the ginger ale you asked for.”
She opened the door and you were almost taken aback with how beautiful she looked in her dress. She took the glass from you and sat down on the bench in front of the vanity, sipping it and taking deep breaths. You closed the door behind you as you stepped into the room, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“You’re a shrink. That’s what you do, right?”
You laughed at her spunk, “Yeah. That’s what I do. But I’m wondering, not as a shrink, but as your friend, how pregnant you are.”
Harper stared at you in the mirror, “Well, aren’t you intuitive?”
“Not really. Most women don’t vomit when the caterer arrives for their wedding or refuse champagne at their rehearsal dinner.”
“Pregnant enough. Sam knows. He’s happy.”
“Does Justin know?”
Harper laughed, “God, no. You see what a nervous Nelly he is. I’ll tell him after the honeymoon.”
“Fair enough. Are you happy about it?”
Harper turned around to face you, “Unbelievably. I can’t wait to have this baby. It just happened a little sooner than I planned.”
You smiled, “Well, congratulations. And you look beautiful.”
“Well, that’s good because I feel like shit.”
You both laughed, and then you asked her, “You about ready to go? I need to know so I can rouse the minister.”
“That guy is a spaz. I know it’s driving Justin crazy that I’m having such a shotgun wedding.”
“He’ll get over it, as long as we don’t run out of food and the florist quits arguing with him.”
“I know. I already went in there and told him to let Justin have his way. It’s not worth it. I hope he doesn’t stop and bitch somebody out while he’s walking me down the aisle.”
“He won’t.” You looked at your watch, “Fifteen minutes to three.”
“Sam’s here?”
“Yeah, he was actually early.”
“Well, that’s probably a good sign.”
You left her alone, walking into their studio transformed into a chapel of sorts, making sure everything was ready. The small room was filled with various friends from the art community, Tess, Harper’s previous studio-neighbor, Maya, and a few from your social circle who’d gotten to know Harper through her shows. Her father didn’t even now about the wedding, much less get an invitation. You went back downstairs to gather everyone, including Justin.
“Remind Jonathon that he’s in charge of the music,” he told you.
“He knows. Let’s go.”
At five minutes after three, the room stood as Harper walked down the aisle on Justin’s arm to the traditional wedding march playing over the speakers. Jonathon came and stood beside you when he was finished with the music. The minister looked awfully perky; his cat nap must’ve done the trick. Harper whispered something to Justin that made him smile, and the minister asked, “Who gives this woman to be married?”
Justin looked at Harper and said, “I do,” and let her go. Harper and Sam had decided that they didn’t want anyone standing with them when they took their vows, so Justin walked to his seat.
When the minister uttered the words, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace,” the entire congregation turned toward the voice coming from the other end of the aisle.
“Time out, man.”
It was Zeek.
Harper smiled when she saw who was standing there. Justin, on the other hand, had a much different reaction, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Justin,” you whispered.
“Well, I’ve left him five hundred messages.”
Zeek walked down the aisle in his black suit, stopping in front of Harper, “Who’s this?” He pointed to Sam.
Harper grinned; she seemed genuinely glad to see him, “Zeek, this is Sam. Sam, this is Zeek.”
“Hello.”
“Hey, man.” And then Zeek turned to Justin, “You like this guy, man?”
“Yeah, I like him.”
Zeek shrugged his shoulders, “Well, okay. Go for it.” The couple started to turn back around again, but stopped when Zeek’s hand was on Sam’s arm, “But you better take good care of her, man, or I will kick your—"
“Zeek.” Suddenly Justin had once again found his manners.
Zeek ignored him, “Mark my words, man. Mark. My. Words.”
Sam, seemingly only mildly flustered, told him, “I love her. You don’t need to worry.”
“Carry on, everybody. Sorry ‘bout the interruption.” Zeek walked over and sat next to Justin, “She looks good, huh, Eggo?”
“Yeah, she looks beautiful.”
****************
JUSTIN’S POV
the mother and child reunion is only a motion away
Seven months and three weeks after Harper’s wedding, the end of May 2008, you sat in the waiting room outside Harper’s hospital room and pretended, for the sake of the other visitors in your vicinity, that you didn’t know the woman who was screaming her head off down the hall. Several people mumbled to one another that they hoped it wasn’t their daughter, aunt, sister, etc. You hid behind your most recent issue of Art Forum and prayed for the whole thing to just be over, and also:
Dear God,
Thank you for not making me a girl.
Amen.
You sent Daniel, who’d insisted on being there because ‘this hospital is always understaffed,’ to the cafeteria to get you something cold to drink. Hearing Harper scream was making you sweat. He returned with bottles of water and juice just as Sam emerged from Harper’s room and plopped down into a chair beside you.
“Well?” you asked him.
“It’s a girl.”
Daniel repeated, “It’s a girl,” like he was trying to convince himself or something. Harper had sworn since her sixth month that it was a girl. You weren’t the least bit surprised. That baby would’ve had a lot of nerve being anything else.
“Is that her screaming?” you asked Sam.
Sam nodded, exhausted, “Like mother, like daughter.”
The next night you dropped by Harper’s room to meet Amelia Jocelyn Harper-Collins in person. She looked just like Harper, only with dark brown hair and brown eyes like Sam. She was tiny, just over six pounds, but she made up for it with a set of lungs that would’ve made an opera singer green with envy. You held Amelia in your arms, and she pooped immediately.
“Oh look, she’s classy, Harper. Just like you.”
“Aw, she can’t help it. She’s just a little stinker.”
“She’s adorable. Absolutely adorable,” you told her, looking at Amelia’s tiny feet. “I can’t believe how much hair she has.”
“Yep, Sam says she’s a looker.”
“He’s right. She’s precious.” Amelia squawked. “That’s right, I said you were precious.”
“Oh my god, you’re worse than Sam with the baby talk.”
“Where is he, anyway?”
“He went home to get some sleep. He was cranky.”
The two of you talked for another twenty minutes or so, and it was nice just to be with her; she’d become so scarce since the wedding and had stopped spending much time in the studio, claiming she was too tired to be creative. You’d missed her. Alan had come by a few times and you took him in, fed him, and often just let him sleep on the futon in your studio while you painted. He asked you if she was going to come back, going to work here anymore.
“I think so. She just has other priorities right now.”
“I miss her,” he told you. “Is she happy?”
“Yeah, she’s practically blissed out most of the time.”
Once, Daniel had come home early and told you to invite Alan to stay for dinner when he woke up. The three of you ate in Daniel’s dining room. Daniel had had a particularly difficult day, having to hospitalize a patient that wasn’t able to cope anymore. He’d handled the admittance procedures, called it a day, and came home to cook. Cooking was Daniel’s anti-drug.
Alan asked him, “You feel like it’s your fault? That your patient is suicidal?”
“No, I know it’s not my fault; I just feel extremely helpless. I just don’t know what to do for them right now,” Daniel replied, concealing even the gender of his patient.
……
……
“Do you shock your patients?”
Daniel gave Alan a quizzical look, “Not usually. ECT is very controversial. I’ve seen some patients really improve after shock therapy, but not very many.”
“I think the shocking killed my mother.”
Daniel looked at you for verification. Alan wasn’t always rational, but tonight he seemed like he knew what he was talking about. You shrugged your shoulders. You didn’t know anything about Harper’s mother, except that she had been dead for years.
“Tell me why you think that,” Daniel asked him, and Alan began to reveal the images that he had of his mother. The conversation almost excluded you, Alan seeming like he’d waited years to tell someone these things. Daniel listened, and you cleared the table and brought out ice cream for dessert. They talked for almost two hours, and at the end, Alan seemed almost relieved. Daniel convinced him to spend the night, worried that just talking about these things was going to be too much for him. Alan didn’t object; he was exhausted. He fell asleep on Daniel’s sofa before you could even offer him the guest room.
Daniel talked quietly as the two of you cleaned up the kitchen, “There’s severe mental illness on both sides of his family. His paternal grandmother died in a mental institution, and his mother committed suicide. His mother’s brother, an uncle he never knew, hung himself in his backyard.” Daniel shook his head, “That kid never had a chance.”
“You gave him one tonight,” you told him. “Maybe just getting it out will do something for him.”
“I hope so. God, this has been a shitty day.” He told you goodnight and disappeared up the stairs.
You stayed that night in your room at Daniel’s so that Alan wouldn’t have to leave before dawn. Daniel woke you up at five thirty a.m.
Alan was gone.
****************
BRIAN’S POV
you could have a steam train
if you'd just lay down your tracks
you could have an aeroplane flying
if you bring your blue sky back
In the months after Babylon was bombed, real estate prices in and around Liberty Avenue plummeted to new lows. Opportunities seemed to fall at your feet. Within six months after Babylon had been rebuilt and was once again a thriving part of the community, you sat in a booth at the diner with the owner of it and several other retail properties and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. The deal essentially made you a silent partner. You retained ownership of the diner and the other properties under the name D.P., Inc. When Ted pressed you for the meaning behind the name, you told him it has something to do with the night you met Justin and you left it at that.
You met with Debbie on the eve of the deal and let her know most of what you were up to. She looked across the table at you waiting for you to drop the bomb, so to speak. She couldn’t imagine why you’d be taking her out to dinner.
“Brian, whatever it is, just tell me.” Her red-painted fingers clutched her neck. “Is it the cancer? You’re not sick again?”
“No, I’m not sick. I just wanted you to know that I bought the diner.” She’d almost choked on her food.
“You what?”
“I bought the diner. Deal was final today.”
“Oh god. Why?”
“I got it for almost nothing, and I wanted it.”
“You wanted it?”
“Yeah. If I hadn’t bought it, someone else would’ve scooped it up and probably torn it down. It was ripe for the taking.” She’d stared at you in disbelief.
“I didn’t even know it was on the market.”
“It’s a prime location. It would’ve gone to some chain or something. I had to.”
“Shit. So that means—"
……
……
“You work for me now.”
“Holy fucking Jesus, Brian. This is the last thing I expected you to tell me.”
“In about three to six months, I’m buying that Thai restaurant close to us and am going to renovate it. I’d like you to help me with that. I don’t know much about running a restaurant Deb. I could really use your help.”
“Doing what? I’m just a waitress, Brian. A waitress with a big mouth, but still, just a waitress.”
“You basically run the diner, Deb. As far as I’m concerned, you can run it for me. Whoever I bring in to run the new place will probably need the benefit of someone who’s inside the restaurant scene here—licensing, inspections, all of that. I need people I can trust who work hard. As far as I’m concerned, that’s you.”
“Holy shit. Am I getting a raise?”
You laughed, “Yeah, I have an official offer right here.” You reached into your jacket pocket, took out an envelope, and handed it to her. “I need you to take over the diner immediately, so look it over and let me know asap. I’d like your answer in forty-eight hours, if possible.”
She opened the envelope and looked at the front page of the contract. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Brian, I’m stunned. I don’t know what to say.”
You leaned forward on your arm, your fingers running up and down the stem of your wine glass, “Say that this deal stays between you and me….and Theodore, who’s contractually bound to secrecy. I don’t need people to know that I own the diner. As far as anyone else needs to know, you now manage the place. It’s a well-deserved promotion. You’ve always been the only person anyone relies on there. The purchase is one of many, things I’m stowing away for a rainy day. I’ll assume the risk. If it makes money, you’ll get twenty-five percent of the profits. If it loses money, there’s no risk to you. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing’s that simple, Brian.”
“It has to be. It’s a condition of the deal and of my offer to you. It’s yours, Deb. Take it and run with it.” She studied your face with a wary expression on hers, “Deb, do you have any reason not to trust me? Have I ever lied to you?”
“No. You’ve always been painfully honest.”
“Then accept my offer and consider it a heartfelt ‘thank you’ for everything you and Vic did for me. Let me give something back.”
Debbie’s eyes began to tear at the mention of her brother, “I want to say ‘yes,’ but I should talk to Carl first. Right?”
“Probably a good idea.”
She tucked your offer into her obscenely tacky purse, “Well, are we having dessert?”
“Sure. We’ll work it off, trust me.”
****************
you could have a big dipper
going up and down, all around the bends
you could have a bumper car, bumping
this amusement never ends
Once Zeek had fixed your electrical system at Babylon that day, he seemed to always be around. You figured it was because, between Babylon, Zeal’s renovations, the loft elevator, and the fact that your office was once a shitty bath house, there was always something that needed to be fixed, or installed, or moved. You even ‘loaned’ him to Debbie when the diner needed to replace a freezer or upgrade a sub panel. Anytime something needed to be done, Zeek always seemed to be standing right in front of you with his hand out and plenty of time. He’d scribble whatever directions you were giving him onto a notepad that, in your opinion, was too small for Gus. Yet he always seemed to get everything exactly right.
About a week after Gabe had come on board, you called a meeting of all your managers and included Debbie so that she and Gabe could get acquainted. Her place on your payroll as far as anyone other than Ted knew, was as a consultant. Zeal was only a few weeks from opening. No meeting of this motley crew, to this day, ever starts on time; a tradition born of the six of you—you, Deb, Ted, Cynthia, Gabe, and Zeek—always waiting for the seventh dwarf—Rube. Rube swore it was his god-given right to be late to anything held before three p.m. since he worked in a nightclub and never shut the doors completely before four. So that day, the six of you sat around your brand new conference room table waiting for Rube who’d called right at ten to say, “Just give me fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, and I’ll be there.”
Debbie, not yet as comfortable with Gabe as she would come to be, flipped through the business plan for Zeal that Cynthia had lain in front of her with a perplexed look on her face. She leaned over to tell you that she had no fucking clue what she was looking at, smiling when you told her not to worry about it. You’d explain it in few minutes. She folded her hands on top of the report and attempted to make idle conversation with you, “So, you talked to Sunshine lately?”
“Sure.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Fine.” You opened your report and pretended to be making notes in the margin. You weren’t interested in Debbie’s attempts at conversation, not when Zeek was regaling Gabe about the life he’d left behind,
“’Cakes, I’m telling you, best piece of ass I’ve had since—"
“Since the last piece of ass you had?” Gabe kept lowering his voice in an attempt to lure Zeek to do the same. It didn’t work.
“Hell, the last piece of ass I had, at the club last night, was nothing compared to Eggo.”
“I’m amazed that your dick can even distinguish one ass from another,” Gabe whispered, rolling his eyes in your direction. You turned your head and pretended to be fixing your Cross pen.
Zeek ignored your comment, “But that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for my baby brother. So, just remember that, ‘Cakes. Remember what I’m sacrificing to be here for you.” It dawned on you that brotherly love was much stronger than you’d ever imagined. Giving up a piece of ass to help your family? That didn’t compute with you. On the other hand, if that was the kind of ass available in New York City, you should’ve gone when you still had both balls.
“Yes, Zeek,” Gabe reiterated, with more than a hint of sarcasm, “I’m fully aware of everything you do for me. No one is more selfless or more altruistic, than you.”
“Lay off the big words, man. That’s not necessary. Everybody knows you have an MBNA.”
“MBNA is a bank, Zeek. Not a business degree.” Gabe glanced in your direction again, and you looked down, pretending that there was a very important message scrolling across your Blackberry. “I have an MBA.”
“And something long and pointy stuck up your ass, man.”
Rube swooped in about that time, and you cleared your throat and then your mind of any thoughts of primo ass, and began the meeting. In no time, and you weren’t exactly sure how, Gabe was informing Debbie that marinara sauce wasn’t supposed to be the color of her hair. You thought you were going to have to pay Zeek to pull them off each other.
Theodore pointed out to you later that you probably didn’t need to hire any more Italians.
****************
you could never know what it's like
your blood like winter freezes just like ice
In November of 2008 on a cold Wednesday around lunch time, Debbie stood in front of your desk at Kinnetik. She and Gabe had long since buried the hatchet, concerned more with making money than on proving who was the more authentic Italian. When they realized they were both going to be fairly well-off, the pursuit of who made the best lasagna fell to the wayside. She walked right in, unwilling to wait for Cynthia to announce her.
“Deb? To what do I owe this surprise? What major appliance in the kitchen-of-the-damned has gone belly-up now?” The two of you had replaced enough ovens and refrigerators and air conditioners in that diner over the last couple of years to have demolished the place and rebuilt it from the ground up.
She smiled, sort of, “I’m not here about the diner.”
Deb was nothing if not easy to read. “What’s wrong?”
“I just got a call from Carl about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Okay, about what?” You didn’t know why she was making you play twenty questions. You had a full schedule that day and then some.
“Brian, Carl just told me,” she put her hands on your desk as if reaching for yours and began again, “Carl just told me that Chris Hobbes is dead.” You closed your laptop and began to look for your briefcase. “Brian? Are you all right?” She stood when you did. You started to walk across your office to the sofa where your briefcase was, and she stopped you, wrapping her arms around you. You did your best to return something that felt like a hug. She released you, looked at your face, and then spoke again, “Call me if you need me. If you need anything.”
“Tell Jennifer, in person.”
She nodded, “Okay.”
You walked back over to your desk and pressed your intercom, “Cynthia, cancel the rest of my week and get me on the next flight to New York City.”
Lyrics taken from Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Stockard Channing’s There Are Worse Things I Could Do from the Grease soundtrack, Frank Loesser/Hoagy Carmichael’s Heart and Soul, Elton John’s Can You Feel the Love Tonight again and Candle in the Wind, Billy Joel’s New York State of Mind, Elton John’s Your Song, Paul Simon’s Late in the Evening and Hearts and Bones, Barry Manilow’s Bandstand Boogie, Elton John’s Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Paul Simon’s Train in the Distance, Elton John’s Kiss the Bride, Paul Simon’s Mother and Child Reunion, Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, and Elton John’s I’m Still Standing.