The Big Easy

LaVieEnRose

The planning for this started, of course, months before, way back before he had any idea what we'd be in for that winter. Justin and his, unbeknownst to us, gradually failing immune system were shaving in the bathroom mirror while I sat on the bathroom counter in an apartment we had no clue we'd be out of before a year was up. I'm thinking last week of January? I said. At this point, Daphne and Derek were still planning to get married in June, so the timing made more sense. Before Derek's students come back and all that tax season shit starts up. Would that work for you?

Justin tapped his razor on the faucet. “Yeah. I have that show at the beginning of February, but a weekend away shouldn't be a problem.” He would, of course, not end up having that show.

That's my hard worker.

“That's me.” He paused. “Do I even come to this?”

What? Of course.

“Bachelor party is for groomsmen. I'm not a groomsman.” Justin was on Daphne's side, along with Molly, Emily (Gwen was bringing the flower girl down the aisle), a friend of Daphne's from medical school and a couple of her cousins. The groomsmen were me, Evan, and a handful of Derek's very straight friends.

It's for all the guys.

“Says who?”

The best man.

“I'm pretty sure the point of bachelor parties is not having your husband there,” he said.

I waved my hand. He wants you there. And it's not like I need to get away from you in order to misbehave. Pretty sure you've seen half of gay Manhattan choke on my cock at this point.

“Plus, what the fuck kind of trouble are you going to get into at a bachelor party for a heterosexual?”

I groaned and tapped my head against the wall. How the fuck do I even plan this? Who ever heard of a big raging party... for straight people?

“Just...imagine you're straight.”

Ugh, no.

He laughed, rinsing his face. “A regular evening of debauchery for a heterosexual Brian Kinney is probably a straight bachelor party.”

Say that again.

He pecked me on the lips. “Debauchery.”

I touched a spot on his cheek where he'd nicked himself shaving and kissed him for a long time, and then I yanked him into the bedroom and didn't think about heterosexuals for a while.

**

A week or two later, I turned around on one of the counter stools when I heard him finally emerge from the bedroom. Wow, you are alive after all. I was getting ready to call your mother and tell her to get a black dress.

Black is cliché, he said with a yawn. She'd do a navy.

You realize you've been asleep for fourteen hours?

Leave me alone, I don't feel good.

I don't care about your problems. Come look at this hotel I found for the bachelor party.

He lumbered over and kissed me on the cheek, barely glancing at my laptop screen on his way into the kitchen. “It's nice.”

I waited until he'd gotten out cereal and a bowl and turned back to me over the counter. It's not nice. It's fucking extravagant as shit. It's a palace. Your face is bleeding again.

He tapped his finger over the shaving cut. “How has this not healed yet?” He went over to the sink and ripped off a paper towel.

I waved at him. Excuse me, Alexei Nikolaevich? One fucking second of your attention, please.

“Hilarious. What?”

I'm making this reservation, all right? Last week of January.

He poured a glass of juice. “Where even is this?”

I gave him a look that hopefully conveyed what a stupid question I thought that was. Vegas.

“Seriously?”

What?

“Vegas is awful.”

When the fuck have you been to Vegas? I'd never been.

“When I did that show out there two years ago? You were in Germany for the...whatever conference. I slept with that Deaf contortionist?”

Oh, fuck, right.

It's awful, he said. The next time someone asks for an example of 'visual noise,' tell them Vegas.

But that's the point! It's alive, it's bright. There are strippers.

It's grimy and depressing, Justin said. And you can find strippers anywhere.

All right, your highness, where do you think we should go?

Justin shrugged. He'd already checked out of the conversation in favor of reading the back of his cereal box, because he's the literal easiest person in the world to distract. Attention span of a damn guppy. I rolled my eyes and went back to scrolling through pictures of the hotel. There was...a lot of visual noise.

“New Orleans,” Justin said after a minute.

I looked up. Remind me the sign for that?

He showed it to me.

New Orleans.

“Yeah. Get out of the cold for a while, get drunk on Bourbon Street. Plenty of gay clubs. Plenty of straight clubs. I'm sure they have strippers. Show your tits and get some beads, whatever. Then Derek passes out drunk with his straight friends and you and me have a threesome with some Cajun guy.”

Well. Hard to argue with all that, don't you think? New Orleans it was.

He cleared his throat. “I think I'm getting a cold.”

Jesus, another one?

“Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it's just allergies.”

**

So all right, now it was the last weekend of January, we'd been through all of the fabulous events of that winter, and I was standing in the living room with my suitcase on the floor next to me and Justin crossing his arms and trying to look stern while he wheezed like a train.

It's just not a good weekend for this, I said.

He cocked an eyebrow.

I have that campaign due next week, and the stuff with the house—

“Cynthia is taking care of the campaign, and I'm taking care of the house.”

I worked my jaw.

“You're the best man,” Justin said. “You have to be at the bachelor party. It's two days.”

Sure. Just two days, nine states, and fifteen hundred miles. What could possibly go wrong?

He couldn't come, obviously; even if he'd had the immune system for an airport and being trapped in a metal tube with a bunch of germy motherfuckers for three hours, the travel alone would have taken all the energy he has and he'd have nothing for the party. He wasn't pouting about it, didn't even want to come because he knew he'd have a lousy time. It was something I'd noticed from him in the past few months. You stop wanting things other people want if you know they'll make you miserable. You let go of shit. Readjust.

Which, I suppose, is why I wanted to stay here too. I cupped the back of his neck and rested my forehead against the top of his head for a minute.

“I'm fine,” he said softly. “If anything goes wrong I just call Daphne.”

I pulled back. I still think you get someone to stay with you.

I haven't had a night on my own in months, he said. I'm looking forward to painting and sleeping and watching awful TV without someone bothering me all the time. He poked me in the side. I can get started on packing without you trying to keep shit we should have thrown away back in Pittsburgh.

So this whole immune system saga was a ploy to get me out of here.

You caught me.

I sighed and pushed and pulled at his shirt for a little while.

I'll be fine, Justin said, and the thing is, I wasn't even scared that he wouldn't be. I seriously wasn't. I wasn't worried that Justin was going to fucking die because he was alone for a weekend; I was worried he was going to have one of his nights where he feels like shit and there would be no one here to help him take care of himself, take his mind off of it, whatever.

I picked up the handle of my suitcase and studied him. Eat, okay? I said.

I will.

And breathe.

That too. Text me when your plane lands. Have fun. Be safe.

I spread my hand on his back and pulled him into my neck for a while, and when he kept nibbling at me I raised his chin and gave him a long kiss. Every time I was going to pull away and get out the door I kept... not.

“You okay?” he said softly.

Yeah, I'm okay.

“You're going to miss your flight,” he whispered.

I breathed in behind his ear, slowly, and smelled lime and salt, and gave him a firm kiss on the side of his neck. Be good, I told him.

Never.

I smacked his cheek. Don't throw away my shit. And I left him there.

**

I met the boys at the airport and exchanged fist-bumps and back-slapping hugs with and Derek and Brandon and TJ, Derek's friends from high school, who were your typical bro-type straight guys but nice enough, and I've spent long enough in the corporate world to know how to deal with that type. Evan's a lot less comfortable with guys like that, and he was hanging back fiddling on his phone while the boys jumped all over me.

How's Justin? Derek asked.

I shrugged. He's good. Sends his love.

He's not mad?

No, he's not mad.

Brandon said something to Derek about needing snacks for the flight, and I gave them some cash and waved them off to a Hudson News and slid up next to Evan. He kissed my cheek and tugged his earbuds out and his hearing aids back in. “You worried?” he said.

I cannot even begin to explain to you what a fucking relief it is to have someone you don't have to pretend to be a well-adjusted human in front of. He's had a bunch of bad nights this week, and he gets really agitated and air-hungry, and I think without someone there to calm him down he's just going to be miserable.

“You think he'll be okay?”

Yeah, he'll be fine, he's been fine. He just feels like shit.

“And he doesn't want to bother anyone.”

Yeah. He'll call Daphne if it's an emergency, but he's not going to call if it's two in the morning and he can't sleep because he can't stop coughing.

Evan blew air out of his mouth. I feel like I should have stayed with him.

I know the feeling.

You're the best man, you had to come.

He wouldn't have let us anyway.

He twisted his bracelet. “It'll be fun, right? Get out of the city for a while?” He was nervous. He never goes anywhere.

You're asking if a weekend I planned is going to be fun? Who the fuck do you think I am?

Are we looking at naked girls?

Yeah. We'll get through it somehow.

Derek's a bit of a nervous flier, so I sat by him and let him squeeze my hand as we took off. It was weird flying without a drugged-up Justin drooling on my shoulder. Now that Cynthia was a partner I didn't have to travel as much for business, and when I did Justin usually came along. Most of the traveling we'd done that past year was around the country for various shows of his, though of course that was before. I spent most of the flight sharing a bag of Bugles with Derek and working through a few contracts on my laptop. Justin had forwarded me some paperwork about the apartment sale—we'd found a buyer the week before—and he'd already handled it with the lawyer, but I gave it a cursory glance just so I'd feel useful.

New Orleans was balmy and warm and alive and I knew the second we got out of a surprisingly podunk airport and into a cab that Justin had chosen well. Billboards for music and clubs lit up the freeway, and the boys stuck their hands out the window and rode the air as we drove at speeds you can't ever reach in the city. We stopped at the hotel—I found some fancy shit here too—and dropped off our bags, I texted Justin to tell him we'd arrived safely, we made ourselves look goddamn gorgeous, and off we trotted to Bourbon Street.

We went to this fancy as hell restaurant and ate our weight in steaks, then got some ridiculously sweet, ridiculously strong drinks called hand grenades that came with little plastic bombs for decoration and got us fucking obliterated, and we wandered the shops and dipped in and out of clubs and bars and watch girls dance in the street. I walked past this mural at one point, all blues and golds and electricity, and I tugged Evan over and we just studied it for a while without saying anything.

We ended up, once we were fucking hammered, at topless dancing place—with women, to clarify, because I am a benevolent God. I entertained myself watching Evan unwind with each shot and start laughing with Derek's friends and trying to figure out which of these girls I would be attracted to in a bizarro universe. Eventually I realized I was picking all the short blondes, which probably should have bothered me more than it did.

It was the jog I needed, however, to realize through my liquor-haze that Justin never answered my text telling we'd landed. Hmm. I was sitting at the bar, halfway through typing a new text asking if he'd died, when Derek's hand landed heavily on my shoulder and he sat down unsteadily next to me. “Jack and Coke,” he said to the bartender, who I could tell didn't get it at all. Derek's voice is never easy to understand—he's my best friend, and I don't always get everything—and the slur of God knows how many drinks wasn't helping. I bit back a smile when the bartender gave me a look and ordered him something a fuck of a lot better than a Jack and Coke, and Derek leaned his head against my arm.

Daphne's prettier than all these girls, he said.

Not really a fair fight. She's a goddess.

Derek slumped over the bar. Here's what I'm worried about, though.

Lay it on me.

He took a deep breath like he was about to say something very important, then signed, She makes more money than I do.

And...?

She's probably always going to make more money than I do. Significantly more!

That's a feature, not a bug, I said.

He sighed.

You think, what, it makes you less of a man? I said.

I just don't want her to resent me.

I shrugged. I don't resent Justin.

But it's not fair.

That's not...a thing, I said. You don't keep score like that. She's not going to look at you like some fucking...insurance write-off. It's just money. It doesn't matter. I make more money, that's not fair to me, he's a hell of a lot kinder than I am and has to deal with me, that's not fair to him. There's never a shortage of shit to point out, if you're looking for it.

And he's sick.

No, that one's fine. My phone buzzed on the bar and startled the shit out of me—perhaps I was a bit more drunk than I thought—and I needed a minute to focus my eyes before I could make out Justin's name and the text, and I felt myself smile.

Hey sorry. Was asleep. Having fun?

long nap

What else is new?

You good? I signed at the phone.

Derek nudged me. That's not going to work.

Oh. I texted it instead.

I'm good, Justin said. Call me when you go to sleep. Love you.

You. I put my phone down and turned back to Derek. He lives.

Derek was watching me, eyes drunk and hazy. This is the stuff they tell you is hard, he said. That's why they bother putting it in the vows. Stick with you for richer and poorer. Sickness and health.

Yeah, because they're too chickenshit to say 'I'll stick with you even when your pain in the ass personality drives me up a fucking wall.' Look, I don't know who came up with this story that dealing with life, with the fucking realities of actually existing, and here we are talking about money, and we are talking about illness, is normal when you're on your own but all of a sudden a valid source of conflict when you're with your fucking person—is it really a revolutionary fucking realization that everything is easier with him than without?—but I have a good idea why he came up with it. All that shit, all these goddamn reasons that Hollywood and Dear Abby or whoever the hell has decided is really the problem in people's boring fucking relationship...people come up with this shit because they don't want to admit that their problems aren't from the fucking superhuman burden of dealing with real life, they're from their own frustrating, ugly, impossible selves, and look, Justin and I have no shortage of flaws, but being too proud to admit those flaws is not fucking one of them. He drives me crazy and it's not easy, but that's not because we're acting out some goddamn play of what a marriage is supposed to look like. It's because it's him and it's me. To the ends of the goddamn earth, God, thank God. It's him and it's me.

Derek finished his drink and said, I'm sleepy.

You and my kid both, Christ. Come on.

Evan, in contrast, was not at all sleepy, and he chattered at Derek's friends the whole walk back to the hotel and bounced and grabbed my sleeve and Brian look at that'd for ten blocks, while I kept an arm around Derek's waist to make sure he stayed upright. I corralled them into the elevator and up to our suite, and I waved the others off to their rooms and helped Derek out of his shoes and pants.

“You're good to me,” he said.

Drink some water, here.

Gonna be a good wedding, he said. Gonna be a good life.

Yes.

It's all thanks to Justin, you know?

I know.

I got him settled in bed with the trash can next to him for good measure and he was snoring before I'd even left the room. I figured Brandon and TJ could take care of their own damn selves, but I am not a man of no responsibilities, so I stopped at the room next to mine and watched Evan battle his shirt and lose for an inordinate amount of time. He finally looked up and saw me and broke into a sloppy grin. “Brian.”

In the flesh. Need help?

He finally wrestled his shirt off and onto the floor. “No.”

Well done.

He flopped down on the bed and held his arms up for a hug. I rolled my eyes and came over and kissed his cheek and turn his hearing aids out.

Did you take your meds? I asked.

He nodded and squirmed underneath the covers.

Good. I shifted my weight around. Are you okay in here? A dumb question, yeah, but sue me; I was drunk and Justin has brutal nightmares if he sleeps somewhere strange by himself. But he nodded and burrowed into his pillow, signing I love you, to me with a hand he pried out from underneath him.

I went to my room and called Justin as I stripped out of my clothes. He was sitting on the floor with a box between his legs, wheezing in that soft way that sounds like a lullaby.

My night owl, I said.

Everyone made it back in one piece?

I nodded and sat down on the bed. They're trashed.

You're trashed.

Maybe. What are you doing?

He held up a few books. Deciding what to bring and what to donate.

How are you feeling?

“Good.”

I lay down on the bed and propped the phone up next to me. You look beautiful.

Thank you. So do you. Tell me about your night, did you have fun?

I nodded, trying to keep my eyes open. Colorful. Would have better with you.

“Christ. You really are drunk.”

I smiled and pulled the comforter over me. I miss you.

“That's embarrassing.”

I laughed, and then I couldn't fucking stop laughing, and he just sat there grinning at me, fucking luminescent.

Don't throw my books away, I said.

“Yeah, we'll see.” His eyes were so warm. “I miss you too.”

We said goodnight, and I took a deep breath and rolled over onto my back and closed my eyes and listened to an unfamiliar city, pretending I was in New York.