Pack up Your Troubles

LaVieEnRose

Emily came into the office just before six, Jane balanced on her hip. Is Evan gone?

Yeah, he had a doctor's appointment. Hi, Janie. That's a nice dress. How was daycare?

She hit Sarah's kid, Emily said.

That's my girl.

Emily looked at me at my desk, still fucking surrounded with paperwork. Are you working late? I want someone to babysit.

I'm not staying, but I have plans.

Damn. Justin too?

I nodded and came over and took Jane so Emily could get her coat on. She signed Dad dad dad, when I kissed her cheek.

Damn, Emily said. I wanted to go dancing.

Bring Jane. I swayed with her a little. She can dance.

Yeah, that's an idea.

She gave my desk a look. Are those the Jacobson proofs?

I'm not staying.

Sure you're not.

I told you. Plans. Get out of here.

Cynthia was my next visitor, twenty minutes later. “Are you going to be here late?”

“No.”

She held up a folder. “The proofs for Tyson just came in and sooooomeone needs to look over them and send feedback to art.”

“Oh, someone like you?”

“I have a date. With one of those guys who has his name at the ends of movies.”

“I'm not staying late. I've been here until nine twice this week.”

“Yeah, if you know how many days you've worked late, you're not working late enough.”

“I have a sick husband,” I said. “I know when I'm not there. I'm going home tonight.”

“Then I guess art isn't getting their feedback.”

“This doesn't break my heart.”

As soon as the clock struck six, I stuck in a pair of ear buds and walked to the subway station, then took the N to Queensboro plaza and the 7 west into the city. One of the last few times I'd be making this trip. I looked out the window while the train was above ground. It might have been finally starting to get warm.

I took the elevator up to the apartment, unlocked the front door, and switched the light on and off instinctively, but Justin was sitting in the middle of the living room floor with a box in front of him. I smiled without meaning to. “Hey,” I breathed.

“You made it!”

You had doubts?

“Did I think you'd find a way to get out of packing? You have to ask that?”

I went to the kitchen and washed my hands, then came out to the living room and bent over and kissed him. Can't let you throw all my shit away. Hi.

“Hi.”

How was your day?

“Good. Painted. Slept. Called my mom. Oh, she wants to know if she should come up here for Jane's birthday or we're going to go home. She'll bring Gus if she comes.”

She should come. Did you eat?

“I ate. I picked up the dry cleaning. And I made an appointment with the fixtures guy, to look at the faucets and doorknobs and everything—”

Right, yeah.

“So that's on Saturday.” He clapped his hands together. “And I did this!” he said, looking down at the box in front of him. Which was not that large. And about halfway packed.

It was going to be a long night. I'll order pizza, I said, and he beamed at me.

**

“This we can donate,” Justin said as he rooted around the closet.

I threw a balled up sock at him so he'd look at me. You realize the house is huge compared to this place, right? We don't have to downsize.

You are such a fucking hoarder! You never wear this.

Will you get out of my fucking clothes? I said. Come help with this shit. He was starting to sneeze from rooting around the back of the closet, and he’d already been a little wobbly from being on his feet that long.

He sat down heavily on the floor next to me, wheezing in, you know, his way, and pulled out the bottom drawer of my nightstand. “Man, there’s a lot of crap in here.”

I’d already been packing up the art supplies and sweaters he had stuffed in his. Yeah, these are bottomless.

He started sifting through the drawer. “Oh.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

Nothing, he said. It's just all medical stuff, pretty much. I guess it makes sense that'd be on your side, I just hadn't thought about it.

Oh. Yeah. No reason he should have assumed it would be on my side, honestly. It's not like in normal situations Justin doesn't take care of the vast majority of this shit without any babysitting from me. The past few months just hadn't been a normal situation.

“Well, we don't need all of this anymore,” he said, and he got to work sorting through it, separating stuff we were still using—oxygen cannulas, Vogmasks—from stuff we weren't, which basically was just empty prescription bottles. He took forever going over each thing, and it was...it is not easy, to sit there quietly and sit on your hands while Justin decides whether he still needs the bottle of medicine that gives him hives and stomachaches and bone-splitting migraines but stops the coughing long enough for him to fall asleep.

A minute ago I'd been complaining about him throwing things out.

Come on, get a move on, I said, when he'd spent two minutes contemplating a blood pressure cuff.

“Sorry, there's...God. There's a lot here.”

Yeah, that's why we're moving. Come on. I went back to packing up some of his clothes, and Justin kept going, but he was slow and I could tell it was getting to him. Figuring out what he will and won't need in the future is the kind of executive functioning he struggles with anyway, and his tendency to jump to the worst case scenario is usually as annoying as it is oddly charming, but right now it was really scaring the shit out of him, because I could see his brain working through all the circumstances under which he'd need all this stuff again.

I nudged him with my foot. Okay, Melvin Udall. I'll finish this.

I don't have OCD.

Yeah, and you're deathly allergic to dogs, the world is full of imperfect analogies. Go get the boxes in the closet in the office.

“I'm fine.”

Sunshine. I fixed him with those eyes that will get me anything from him. Let me do this, okay?

“Control freak,” he groused, and I gave him a what do you want from me, shrug, and he hauled himself up off the floor, giving me a little smack on the back of the head on his way to the office. I took a deep breath and got through as much of the box as I could before he got back. Christ, we really could put a hospital to shame. I filled the trash bag with everything he didn't use at least once a week, as long as it could be easily replaced.

Justin came back a few minutes later, balancing a heavy box. He sat down on the floor with it, panting a little.

I spared him a glance. You need your inhaler?

“I'm fine.”

All right. I don't even know what's in that one.

He opened the lid and leafed through. “Looks like mostly my stuff. Invoices and proposals and stuff. All of this can go.”

Well, make sure none of it's from this year.

He nodded, and we worked quietly for a little while he rifled through the papers and had no idea how much goddamn noise he was making and I went into the bathroom and got some of the shit from under the sink. Ancient toothbrushes, half-finished bottles of shampoo. And more hospital crap.

After a while he laughed a little and said, “Bri, come look at this.”

I got up and stretched and went back to the bedroom. He held up a stack up papers.

I said, What are those, drawings? That's weird. Where'd those come from?

He ignored me. These are so old. You really are a fucking hoarder, you know. We could get you on one of those shows.

Most of the drawings were of me, of course, and God, I looked like a fucking kid. Christ. These are old.

“I forgot how good I used to be,” he said softly, and before I could ask him what the fuck he was talking about he smiled and showed me one. “This has got to be one of the earliest naked Brians.”

Yeah, you don't remember that one?

He shook his head.

Well, you are brain damaged. That's from your show, the one at the center.

“Huh,” he said, and then, “No, that can't be right. I sold that one, I remember. My first sale ever.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, and after a moment he broke into that fucking Sunshine smile.

“You bought it?” he said.

I sighed.

“Christ, you really love me.”

I mean, not as much as I love drawings of my cock, but sure.

He studied the drawing, his smile fading just a little. “God. I could never do this now.”

You drew my cock yesterday.

He shook his head. “Just these fine lines, here, see? Look how small and precise these are.”

And as much as I wanted to deny it, to scoff and call him a drama princess or whatever the hell...he was right. Justin's style is boldness, looseness, bigness, and some of that is...I mean, look at this fucker, he's tucked in a pretty little package but he's about as big and bold as they come, but some of that is also how he's adapted. Because he's right. He doesn't have the hand control for that anymore.

“I forget sometimes,” he said softly.

That you can't do things?

He shook his head. That it wasn't always like this.

I cleared my throat. And you used to be hearing, too, I said, and thank God that made him laugh a little. I bent over and kissed his forehead and took the drawing away from him.

We can throw it out, he said.

Are you kidding? I paid good money for this. I looked it over. The shading on my throat's not quite right, is it?

What are you talking about?

Well, if the light source is here, that part...see?

He nudged me. Stop making me feel bad.

I rolled my eyes. You'd never make that mistake nowadays. That's my point.

He watched me.

Fuck fine lines, I said. You figured out light.

**

We took a break to have sex and eat some more pizza and ended up sprawled out on the living room floor for a while, just resting and running our hands over each other. We got up eventually and I packed up books and DVDs while Justin worked on the kitchen, until he told me he was feeling weird so I went in to keep an eye on him since there's about ninety different ways for him to kill himself during a seizure in the kitchen. He didn't even end up having one; he was just feeling crappy from lifting heavy shit and having his brains fucked out of him. I told you. Drama princess. But it was a nice excuse for me to sit there and do nothing but watch him while he did the actual work, which is probably a bit too obvious of a metaphor for my taste, but we press on.

Kitchen at the house is huge, I said. We'll have to get you some new toys.

“Yeah?”

Sure. Cappuccino machine. Waffle iron. Whatever. He likes to cook.

“Um, did you know that you're amazing and I love you?”

Sounds familiar, yeah.

“My new studio's enormous too,” he said. “I'm gonna have to actually paint or something.”

Wild.

“I know.” He straightened up and leaned against the counter and looked at me. “Do you think I'm complacent?”

I tried not to smile at how he'd completely butchered the word. No, I think you're tired.

“I used to not even be able to live with myself if I wasn't making something,” he said. “And now it's like...I've barely done anything in months and I don't hate myself for it.”

And this is a problem?

“I don't know.”

Remember how you were all glowing with fucking pride when I got it through my head that I was worth more to you than the shit I do for you?

“Oh, have you settled on that conclusion? That's news.”

It comes and goes. But you see my point.

“But it's not like I'm just painting to have value to you. This is like...”

We don't need the money.

“It's not the money. It's like...cosmic shit. Some reason for taking up space on the planet.”

You're not very big.

He gave me a look.

You think your therapist would be happy that you feel like you don't have to apologize for just existing?

“Oh, who knows with her.”

I laughed. You're doing fine, my child.

“Yeah, yeah.” He shrugged. “I'm worried that I don't even count as an artist anymore. That people are going to judge me for just...being some little homemaker.”

I raised an eyebrow. Now who's got the internalized misogyny?

“God, why do I teach you anything.”

I've been wondering that for years. Do you want to steal some paintings from the Met and we'll tell people they're yours so they'll think you're still painting?

Yeah, that sounds good.

Okay, we'll do that. I came over and kissed him. You'll paint when you're ready.

“Yeah.” He wheezed out a sigh. “And in the meantime, cappuccinos!”

And waffles.

“I deserve new toys even when I'm not working,” he said, as if the new toys weren't shit he was going to use to make stuff for me. He still thinks he's the one winning out.

He's a trip.

Imagine that, I said, and he smiled up at me.

**

“You have to do this,” Justin said, his hands full of CDs. “How the fuck am I supposed to know which ones to keep?”

Revolutionary idea: stop throwing away my shit.

“I know Evan likes this one...”

The ones on top are probably the ones I put on the most. I used to not play music, back in the first few years after Justin lost his hearing, but he doesn't usually mind anymore. I always ask, but most of the time he says he doesn't care.

After a few more minutes of leafing through the CDs, though, he said, “No, you do it, this is making me sad.”

I finished packing up the lamp I was working on and came and clapped my hands on his shoulders from behind—carefully—-and kissed the crown of his head. He tilted back to look at me and wrinkled his nose.

Poor Deaf Justin, I signed on his face.

Yes, it's very tragic.

I gave him a light smack on the ass and took the CDs from him, and he took my post at the lamps. I packed up CDs and even set aside a few to donate like the martyr I am, but when I got near the bottom of the stack I stopped and smiled a little and got Justin's attention. Do you remember this one?

“I mean, I know what it is. I don't remember what it sounds like.”

You used to love this one, I said. Back at the loft I'd come home and you'd be dancing around to it while you painted.

He smiled.

I put the CD in and turned up the volume; fuck the neighbors, we were leaving soon anyway. He stayed where he was, watching me, while I slowly crowded into his space. You were so fucking hot, I said.

How about now?

I gave him a nonchalant little shrug and led him over to the speaker, and he put his fingers against it and felt the beat. After half a verse of the first song, he smiled.

You remember? I said.

He nodded and fit himself into my arms, and I danced him around the living room for a while.

So fucking hot.

**

“I remember our first night here,” Justin said, when the living room was almost empty. “We didn't have any furniture. We ate Chinese food on the floor.”

After you got lost in Central Park.

Oh, God, that's right.

Now we'll have a whole new borough to get lost in, I said.

He tucked himself under my arm, and I sighed a little and pulled him in close to me.

Whole new house, he said after a minute.

Yeah. To fill up with unnecessary invoices, ugly sweaters, old drawings.

Hospital shit, he said.

I nodded and kissed his forehead. I can't wait.