Everything at Once-Bonus Epilogue 3-Accomplished-Part 1/2
Title: Everything at Once-Bonus Epilogue-Accomplished-Matt Westhiem's POV
Disclaimer: The Queer as Folk characters featured in this epilogue belong to Shotime/Cowlip. The original characters are mine.
Appreciation: vedaprophet & triciaqaf beta'd this for me, and it was no small job. Thank you!
Author's Notes: This epilogue pulls from certain sections of Chapter 14-Sanctuary and Chapter 18-Provocation
EPILOGUE 3-ACCOMPLISHED-MATT WESTHEIM’S POV
Part 1/2
remember when the days were long
and rolled beneath a deep blue sky
When Brian Kinney and I were boys, there was no doubt in either one of our minds that we would someday rule the world. My little brother, John, nine at the time, now a world-class valet and servant to the ‘more rich than he is,’ would be our slave, fulfilling our every need, twenty-four hours a day if he knew what was good for him. I don’t think anyone expected two eleven-year-old boys that spent the hot, humid days of June, July, and August holed up in old, rusty railroad cars to be rational, realistic global despots, but even I’ll admit now that a world domination strategy that included giving a free ten-speed bike to every boy who agreed to join our cause wasn’t exactly feasible.
Even back then, Brian didn’t have much use for girls. Neither of us did. Let’s face it. Girls were disgusting.
It always amazed me, even as a young boy, how much energy and effort Brian put into our summers on the railroad tracks. I remember lying on my stomach on top of maps and charts and army men and monopoly houses and bingo counters and Brian’s old game of Battleship strewn all over the inside of one of those cars, but I barely remember actually bringing any of that stuff there. Over the years, I’ve just decided that we must’ve made John our caddy; Brian and I flew far too fast on our bikes, too busy showing off for one another, to concern ourselves with cargo. John’s job as the porter was probably his price of admission to our war games.
For as strong-willed as Brian and I both were, we got along great together. I would spend hours drawing and re-drawing the boundaries of every state and country on our torn and re-taped map of the world while Brian figured out exactly how many troops, tanks, submarines, and missiles it would take to conquer our next enemy and then sent them on their way. I was too young to understand it then, but Brian desperately needed an enemy he could conquer.
Back then, it was board games that held our interest. Today, it’s board rooms.
It’s really not much different.
If on any given day, as I rode up the hill toward Brian’s house, I saw his father’s car in the driveway, I knew to turn around and start heading for the tracks. His father’s car was a signal to me. It meant two things: Brian was long gone, and I’d never beat him to our hide out. And it meant the minute I got there, we’d go straight to the back door of the diner, Luther’s place, and I’d watch Brian talk Luther into giving him lunch. When Jack Kinney came home from work for lunch, Brian never stuck around. I asked him about it one time when we first met, before I knew Brian very well, and he told me he didn’t like what his father made for lunch.
”Why? What does your father make?”
“Knuckle sandwiches.”
It took me about thirty seconds to realize he wasn’t kidding.
He made that joke in front of Luther once, and every time we knocked on the back door after that, Luther would have something for us without us even asking.
It wasn’t like I never spent any time in Brian’s house when we were kids. I did. Those times were just few and far between. Usually, we were just there because we needed something to assist us in our execution of The Master Plan. This was typically something from Claire’s room because she was a girl, and she had everything. We’d raid her board games for pieces we wanted, her sewing box for buttons and straight pins, and her desk for colored pencils to mark all of our different battle plans. She knew we were pilfering from her, but she could never prove it. We were excellent liars, and we never left any evidence behind.
Which was a miracle actually, because sometimes we were unbelievably stupid. Like the day we decided to steal Claire’s Lite Brite. Luckily for us, she was at Vacation Bible School that day, a fate that Brian had escaped that summer because the summer before, he had incorporated Satan into some art project they’d had to do. After that, Vacation Bible School was somehow always too “booked” to enroll Brian.
We were standing in Claire’s room that morning when I got this genius idea that Lite Brite was the ultimate world domination planning tool ever invented. Brian immediately agreed with me and after we couldn’t find the actual box for The Ultimate World Domination Planning Tool Ever Invented, we stuffed all of the colorful, pointy pegs into our pockets and snuck out the back door with the white and black answer to all of our problems hidden under one of Brian’s Vacation Bible School t-shirts. Brian tied it to his bike, and we flew to the railroad tracks feeling like the most invincible boys in the world. Once we arrived, I’d never been so glad to empty my pockets in my life. Those little pegs had practically drilled through my skin as we’d raced to our destination. They made a wonderful sound and scattered everywhere as we got them out of our pants.
“I can’t wait to hear Claire at dinner tonight, ‘Does anyone at this table know where my Lite Brite is?’” Brian had his imitation of Claire’s whiny superior voice down to an art form.
“Your sister’s thirteen. Why’s she still playing with Lite Brite?”
“She’s not. She just takes inventory of her bedroom three times a day. She’s a freak.” I didn’t blame her. We stole from her practically every single day.
“Um, Brian, where’re we gonna plug this in?”
“Aw, shit.” He looked around the car like a receptacle was going to magically appear out of nowhere. “Damnit. I totally forgot about that.”
“Me, too. Now we have to pick up all of these stupid little pegs.”
“Where’s your brother?”
******************************
send up a signal
I'll throw you a line
Returning the Lite Brite was more complicated than stealing it. I had to keep it at my house that night, and then meet Brian at his house the next morning to put it back because that’s when Claire was in bible school. I showed up around ten thirty, earlier than usual, because I could tell that my mom was getting ready to make me dust and vacuum my room, and I didn’t want to stick around for that. For some reason, Brian’s father’s car was there. I contemplated going back home but didn’t want to have to help clean the house, so I stood in his driveway for a minute and tried to decide what to do. Finally, I went around to the back of the house and started throwing Lite Brite pegs at his window. After about the tenth one, the window started to go up and his head popped out.
“What. The. Fuck?”
“I didn’t want to ring the bell.” I was whispering. “I have the Lite Brite.” I felt so stupid. So out of place.
“Congratulations.” I just stood still and stared at him. I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes Brian wasn’t a boy. I didn’t know who he was. “Leave it. I’ll come get it.”
I sat it on the grass in front of me, the pegs in a plastic bag and walked away. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be there when he came out to get it. I left, went home and cleaned my room.
It gave me something to do.
I remember the afternoon that Brian and I were lying in the doorway of the rusty brown car playing Battleship, and the sun was starting to set and shining right in his eyes. He was squinting and complaining that the only reason I was winning was because he was temporarily blinded. My little brother John was jumping over rocks with his bike in front of us trying desperately to get our attention. We were quite skillfully ignoring him. We had that down to an art form.
”Go home, John. You’re getting on our fucking nerves.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Matt. Mom said if you can be here, I can be here.”
“Then go be ‘here’ over ‘there.’ You’re bugging us.”
“There’s no good rocks over there.” Brian picked one up off the ground and threw it in front of one of the other cars.
“Now there is. Get lost, Little John.” John scowled at us and pedaled away.
I guess I’d always figured that Brian and I would spend our entire lives in those railroad cars, that we’d graduate from Battleship, Mastermind, and War to Chess to video games once we figured out how to steal power from the diner. I never thought I’d be staring across from him that day telling him what I was telling him,
”Um, my dad told me last night that he got a new job, and we’re moving away.” He didn’t say anything. I let him sink my battleship.
“When?”
“Two weeks. So we can start school on time in Florida. We’re moving to Florida.”
“Florida’s not in the master plan. It’s already been eliminated.” Even at eleven years old, his voice dripped with sarcasm.
“It’s not like I want to go.”
“Well, there’s Disneyworld and shit.” Brian never lost sight of the important things.
“That was the reason we eliminated Florida to begin with.” He laughed.
“I guess it is a small world after all.”
Brian and I spent the next two weeks pretending like nothing was different. We rode our bikes, played practical jokes on John, ate free food from Luther, and stole more pieces out of every board game Claire had just to drive her crazy. The evening before the morning I was leaving for good, we rode our bikes home from the railroad tracks as usual and stopped in my driveway to plan for the big day. The day I was dreading.
”I’ll come by your house tomorrow before we leave. And I’ll bring you all the maps and everything. You can keep them. And all the pieces and stuff, since most of them are Claire’s anyway.” We laughed. He told me he was going to put them back a little at a time to really drive Claire bananas. I watched him push off and climb the hill back to his house.
We were ready to leave around twelve fifteen the next day, a Friday, my family packed like sardines into our Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon. My father was anxious to start the long drive to Florida, so he insisted on driving me to Brian’s house. I couldn’t really argue. My bike was packed. We got about a block away from Brian’s house when I saw Mr. Kinney’s car in the driveway, and didn’t see Brian’s bike. My father had circled around in the cul-de-sac so the driveway was on my side of the car.
”Okay boys, make it quick. I want to get moving.” John was pushing me to open the door. I told him to cut it out.
“Forget it, Dad. He’s not home.”
“You sure? Go knock on the door.” I shook my head.
“I’m sure. He’s not there. He went out for lunch.”
******************************
you oughtta know by now…
My dad’s company kept him in Florida until I was fifteen and then promptly transferred us back. It was easy to fall back into step with Brian. In many ways, it was like I’d never left. Brian always joked with me, telling me it was because I’d never actually said ‘good-bye’ in the first place. The only thing that was really different was that instead of having my little brother tagging along after us, we had Michael Novotny.
At first, I just couldn’t understand why Brian would even want to be friends with this kid. He wasn’t like us at all. He was short and not very smart, and he talked all the time about comic books and Superman and the ‘who gives a shit’ details of their imaginary lives. Plus, he lived all the way over near Liberty Avenue. Then, I found out that his mom worked at a diner. For the first month or so that I was back, I was convinced that Brian had befriended this kid just to get free food. I asked Brian once why he hung around Michael, and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said,
“I don’t know. He doesn’t have a dad.”
“He doesn’t?”
“He’s dead. And his mom’s nice to me.”
It made a lot more sense to me the night I was supposed to meet them right inside our football stadium for a Friday night home game. I was early, so I went to take a piss. Michael was leaning against the outside of the boy’s bathroom. I waved to him as I got closer and told him I was early.
“Where’s Brian?” Michael looked guilty of a crime.
“Not here yet.” I stepped past him. Instinct, I guess. He tried to stop me. Brian was leaning against the brick wall of the building with his hand on the back of Stewart Markham’s head. He was getting a blow job. My mouth fell open. I grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him in the other direction, out of view.
“What are you? The lookout?”
“Shut up. He’ll hear you.”
“How long has--? This is what you do? He gives you answers to tests, lets you copy his homework and you make sure the coast is clear?” I wanted to spit on him.
“Shut up.” I heard Brian moan. It made me sick.
“This is sick.”
“Get outta here, Matt. He doesn’t want you to know.”
******************************
you Catholic girls start much too late
I wish I could say that I remember everything that happened exactly as it happened after that night, but I don’t think I do. I remember being furious at Brian for not telling me, for making me feel like a fool, for doing shit like that in public, when everyone knew we were close friends. I remember thinking that everyone was going to think I was a fag, too.
I remember him telling me that he let our gym teacher fuck him. More than once.
And that he liked it.
And that I cried.
Mostly because I didn’t understand. Because I wanted my friend back, the way he was. Before.
Before I left. When it was just me and him and sometimes John at the railroad tracks and the only thing I worried about was whether or not he was going to beat me to the railroad tracks……….because his father had come home for lunch……..and beaten him.
Because that was so much better. A man touching him like that rather than like this. At least that for some reason, I understood. That, for some reason, didn’t make me sick.
Just ashamed of myself.
But back in school, we were just the same. The three of us, sitting in the back, Brian and I feeding Michael answers to shit he didn’t know, Michael feeding us all the food we wanted. I became editor of the school paper. Brian became our sports reporter, his all-access pass to the boys’ locker room. I pretended I didn’t care.
We sat in the lunchroom one day eating pizza for the thirteenth time that week, and Brian listened to me bemoan the fact that some cheerleader I’d had my eye on for the entire semester didn’t even know I was alive. As usual, he found my failures with women extremely amusing.
“You have no confidence. That’s your problem.”
“You’re giving me advice about women.”
“Men. Women. It’s all the same.”
“Okay. We’ll let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right. I find some magical confidence inside me, and she says ‘yes.’ Then what am I going to do?”
“Fuck her.”
“Fuck her?”
“Yep.” He raised his eyebrow at me.
“You act like it’s nothing. Like I would just do it. Voila!”
“It’s not rocket science, Matt. It’s pretty simple. You make everything so fucking complicated. That’s your whole problem. Hell, I’ll fuck her, and you can watch and take notes. Or better yet, you can videotape it for posterity-“
“That’s what I need. How to Fuck A Chick by Brian Kinney The Faggot.” The smirk born on his face after I that said to him would become his trademark.
“Well, it’s sold more copies than How to Fuck A Chick by Matt Westheim the Virginal Piece of Chicken Shit Who Wouldn’t Know A Pussy if He Fell Into It.”
“Isn’t there someone on the faculty you haven’t fucked yet? Maybe a janitor?”
“There was a bus driver that caught my eye.”
And so it went. But I realized that day what I was really mad at him about. He was the one who was supposed to teach me about girls, to pave the way for us while we fondled the female half of the student body. It wasn’t supposed to matter that I wasn’t the confident one. It was his job to reel them in. Not mine. I was the keeper of The Master Plan; he was supposed to execute it. But, no. He had to go be a fag and fuck everything up for both of us.
If I never lost my virginity, I was going to sue Brian Kinney for something.
We spent the summer before college more separate than together, mostly because I was determined to get rid of my virginity before we went and because Michael wasn’t going with us. Brian and Michael spent most of their time on Liberty Avenue. I spent most of my time convincing Jan Hershel to let me in her pants. She did.
And Brian was right. There wasn’t much to it.
It was over in sixty seconds. A minute of a wet, sticky, rushing urge that made me want to hold her hostage forever in that old, musty railroad car. Not because I liked her, just because I had to figure out a way to convince her to let me do it again.
That’s the kind of thing I needed Brian for. He was much better with POWs.
Jan Hershel wasn’t the least bit interested in letting me re-sink my Battleship.
But at least it was over. I wasn’t a virgin anymore. It was mind-boggling to me how something that was over so fast meant so much.
******************************
if it seems like I’ve been lost in let’s remember…
if you think I’m feeling older and missing my younger days…
And then we were men. College men. In a world where it didn’t matter if you were straight or a fag or what clothes you wore or if your parents had money. He played on one field, I played on the other. We studied hard, drank a lot, and I fucked enough women to almost catch up with him-for about thirty seconds. He’d see Michael when we’d go home for Christmas, staying with him instead of his family. There was no going back home for Brian after he left, not once he’d experienced freedom from his father. I just don’t think he could bring himself to spend another night in that house. He always felt guilty for not being able to go back there, always telling me that being the youngest in the family was no excuse for not being the strongest.
I never knew what to say.
Especially when I looked up from our table in the cafeteria one day, and saw two very pretty blonde women sitting down at a table right near us, staring in our direction, but mostly, of course, at Brian. There was something about one of them that literally took my breath away. Brian gave them his usual smile. He was an unconscionable flirt, particularly with women. He had nothing to lose. I muttered under my breath to him,
“None of this ‘I bat for the other team business.’”
“Let me show you how it’s done.”
Brian had them sitting with us in less than ten minutes. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the girl who introduced herself to me as Valerie Simmons. Her friend, Lindsay Peterson, was pretty hot, too. We talked about everything-sports, politics, school, careers, you name it. I found out that Valerie and I were actually in a class together that semester. Brian found out Lindsay was from Pittsburgh.
Val’s parents were loaded, and I went to Europe with them when during the summer after my sophomore year. Brian stayed at school and worked as a gopher at an advertising agency. Lindsay stayed, too. Apparently, she hated her parents, too. When the four of us started our junior year, Val told me that Lindsay told her that Brian had “jumped the fence” while we were in Europe.
“Not for keeps or anything. I think they were just experimenting. Lindsay’s decided she’s gay, too.”
“Leave it to Brian to fuck a girl and turn her into a lesbian. That’s all the world needs. Brian Kinney fucking everything. Turning everything gay.”
“Yeah, Matt. That’s Brian’s super power.”
“He just better stay the fuck away from your vagina. That’s all I’m saying.”
To this day, Val tells me she has a hankering for some Brian Kinney at least once a year. Val likes to torment me, and as Brian always says, “And not in a positive, life affirming way.”
By the end of our junior year, Val and I were engaged, or, as Brian so eloquently put it, ‘you finally found a girl who likes the way you do it.’ Brian was the last person I told. We were sitting out in the quad on an unusually warm day in March during our senior year. His response was about what I expected.
“Well congratu-fucking-lations.”
“I want you to be my best man.”
He let out the biggest sigh I’d ever heard come out of him as he fell back dramatically on the grass, “Of course you do.” I rolled my eyes at him. He pretended to be dead. I poked him with a stick. “This is payback for me being a fag, isn’t it?”
“Are you freaking because I’m getting married or because you have to be in a wedding?”
“All of the above. I’m not making a toast. I refuse. You can’t make me.”
“I thought you’d like it because there’ll be an open bar and you’ll get to dress up.” He thought about that for a minute and sat up.
“I didn’t even think about that. Can I pick out the tuxedos?” My future-wife would end up killing me for this. “And the shoes?”
“Sure.”
“Deal.”
******************************
rebels been rebels since I don’t know when
Lindsay’s job at my wedding was to be Brian’s date and to use the stun gun we provided for her if he got out of line. She threatened him with it when he stood up and announced that he did want to make a toast after all, something about how happy he was that Val and I were finally married and getting our own place, so that he didn’t have to listen to us fuck anymore. He was extremely drunk by that point and although we understood what he was saying, we were fairly certain that no one else could.
“Okay, Brian, that’s enough. Everyone was very touched by your kind words,” Lindsay pulled him back down into his chair.
“Well, all I’m saying is that one mustn’t forget that I’m that one who explained to Matt how to fuck a girl in the first place.” By this time, Brian was half lying in Lindsay’s lap.
“We know, Brian.” Even though she didn’t.
“If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even know where to stick it.” He was more or less talking to the tablecloth while Lindsay stroked his hair.
“Your altruism knows no bounds.”
“Ironic, isn’t it? Considering I’m such a tremendous homosexual. Oh, fuck-“ He slid off of Lindsay’s lap and ended up more or less under the table. My wife told me to leave him there. We did, until it was time to cut the cake.
******************************
I don’t care what you say anymore
this is my life
My degree in telecommunications wasn’t going to take me very far in Pittsburgh, and I knew it. When I got a job offer in California, I took it. Brian was less than thrilled because he knew that Val’s rich and powerful family had pulled strings to get it for me. As far as he was concerned, they owned California, and by default, me. But that didn’t really matter because my married life in Pittsburgh and Brian’s gay single life in Pittsburgh just didn’t mesh. We’d meet for a drink after work, talk the talk, and then have this awkward “see you later” thing because I was going home to my wife, and he was going out to the bars. We just didn’t have anything in common anymore. He didn’t want to hear about decorating my new house, and I didn’t want to hear about the two guys he took home last night and how one blew one while the other rimmed him. We were painfully out of sync. But for some reason, we kept trying.
Until the night I told him about the job offer, which he wasn’t thrilled about, and then topped it off by telling him that Val was pregnant.
“You fucking dumb ass.” That was about the reaction that I expected. “You’re twenty-two years old.”
“We didn’t exactly plan it.”
“Were you using birth control?”
“No.”
“Then you planned it. God, you are so fucking stupid sometimes.”
“You act like you thought I wasn’t going to have kids, Brian. Did you think I was just playing house? This is what I want. Duh.” He just kept looking at me like I was the dumbest person he’d ever met. And then it kind of all clicked into place in my head. “That’s what it is, isn’t it? You don’t think any of this is for real. That we’re just playing. That I don’t really love Val. That I didn’t really want to get married. That I don’t like my life. Well, you’re wrong. I love it. I love her. I love the fact that she’s pregnant. In fact, I can’t wait for the baby to get here, Brian. I can’t wait to be a father. So, fuck you.”
He looked at me like I had slapped him. “Tell Val I said congratulations.” He threw twenty dollars on the table, grabbed his leather jacket, and left me sitting there, all alone.
******************************
don’t wait for answers, just take your chances
Twins run in Val’s family. Information that would’ve been nice to have before I got her pregnant. I think it was this information that broke the stalemate between Brian and I. He enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense when I told him the news and then asked him to please meet me for a drink because I was in no way, shape, or form ready to be the father of two twin boys.
I let him laugh at me for a good fifteen minutes.
And then I told him to shut the fuck up.
“Matt, you can’t remember to feed a dog. How are you going to keep two little babies alive?”
“Okay, first of all, Rusty was John’s dog, not mine. He was not my responsibility. And secondly, I don’t have to feed them. I just have to make the money.” Brian nodded, downing his whiskey.
“Well, that you can do. That I’m not worried about. But, shit, twins? And your first time out. God, just think what you might get the second time. You need to lock your penis up and throw away key.”
“Shut up.”
“Have you thought of any names? I vote for ‘Big Mistake Number One’ and ‘Even Bigger Mistake Number Two.’”
“That’s too long to stitch on a blanket.”
“Good point.”
******************************
closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the west coast
As a new husband and expectant father of twin boys, I did everything I was supposed to do. I found a house for us in L.A. I scheduled my start date at my new job to be about three months after my boys were to be born. I hired movers to get us out of Pittsburgh.
Val did everything she wasn’t supposed to do. She went into labor early, while I was in L.A.
When I finally got back to Pittsburgh later that day, I was already a father. Lindsay had pushed with Val. Brian had paced in the waiting room on my behalf. I saw him before I saw anyone else. He looked completely wrung out and exhausted in his suit, his shirt unbuttoned, his tie wrinkled from where he’d been pulling on it.
“Oh my god, where is she? They’re okay, right? They’re okay?”
“They’re fine. They look just like me.” Right then, Lindsay popped out of a room near the nurse’s station.
“You’re here! Congratulations! Come on! Come on. Hurry up! They’re about to take them to the nursery.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them. Alex and Tyler Westheim. Screaming their heads off. They did look sort of Brian. It was kind of funny.
Well, not to my wife.
******************************
they say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
some say it’s better, but I say it ain’t
Brian said the only reason he spent his week of vacation in L.A. helping me get our house ready was because he was running out of people to fuck in Pittsburgh. We spent our days building two of everything, cribs, dressers, changing tables, high chairs, you name it. Val would call three times a day to add things to the list. Brian and I were baby furniture professionals by the end of the week. And he was totally fucked out. I don’t think he slept more than two hours on any given night. The scene in L.A. was completely irresistible to him. He reveled in the anonymity of it all. Nobody knew him, nobody needed to……..he was in heaven.
Strollers by day. Trolling by night.
“You should move out here. You belong here.”
“By the time this week is up, I’ll have fucked everyone in this town, too.”
“I’m serious. You don’t think you could make serious money out here? Fuck Pittsburgh.”
“It’s too expensive to live out here.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. Plus, you can stay with us for little while, find a place you like.”
“You want her to divorce you? Take your precious bundles of joy and leave your ass?”
“All right. I’m just saying you’d have friends out here.”
“I have friends back there.” I dropped the subject.
“Once we finish this last bookshelf, we’re done.”
“Explain to me again why a three-week old needs a bookshelf?”
******************************
but somewhere back there in the dust
that same small town in each of us
And then Val and I and my precious bundles of joy were gone. No more Pittsburgh, no more cold winters, no more drinks with Brian after work, nothing. Val had her family in California, she had the twins, she had me. I didn’t know anyone. I missed Pittsburgh. I missed Brian. Hell, I even missed John and Michael sometimes. My job was great, but I missed having a friend that would just insult me all the time.
That was so pathetic.
I kept in touch with Brian, mainly through email, talking on the phone with him once in a while, listening to his stories about his wild nightlife and how his nightlife had somehow morphed into him fucking people in his office during the day.
“You’ve lost your fucking mind, Kinney.”
“Why are you calling me ‘Kinney’ all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know. It just suits you. Why are you fucking people in your office?”
“I’m entitled to a lunch break just like everyone else.”
“You are seriously fucked in the head.”
“Does seem that way sometimes.”
“By the way, Val’s pregnant again.”
“You just never learn, you do?”
“Must be fucked in the head.”
“Apparently.”
******************************
’cause he knows it’s me they’ve been comin’ to see
to forget about life for awhile
When my son Jake was born, he almost wasn’t. His umbilical cord collapsed during delivery, denying him oxygen for a few minutes. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It’s just something that happens. Jake has ten fingers and ten toes and cerebral palsy.
It broke my heart.
Alex and Tyler were two when Jake was born, our other huge mistake. Talk about hell. I think the only reason I got through those first few months was because I could pick up the phone and call Brian and rant about how totally fucking unfair it was that some completely random act had done this to my son.
And on an unrelated note, all two-year-olds should all be locked up.
“Does Jake look more like you or more like Val?” Brian asked me one night on the phone while I was feeling particularly sorry for myself.
“More like me, actually.”
“Damn, that kid can’t catch a break, can he?”
“I really hate you sometimes.”
“I told you to put your pecker away. You just didn’t listen.”
“He’s smart as hell, Brian. He just can’t control his muscles. He’s nine months old, and he can’t hold on to anything. Not even my finger. But he understands everything that goes on around him. Everything.”
“Then go with plan A and lock up the other two so they can’t hurt him. I might actually like this one.”
“You’d love him. He reminds me of you sometimes. He talks with his eyes. He has no other choice.”
“Maybe he is a genius.”
******************************
he sees angels in the architecture
For a while, as my boys started to grow up, I spoke with Brian less and less. Life is like that, I guess. I was constantly chasing after Alex and Tyler, and Val was enrolling Jake in every program she could think of to help him conquer his disability. Our kids were just like everyone else’s kids. They went to preschool, including Jake; they got hurt, drove us bananas, broke shit in our house, got in trouble in school, played baseball…. The list goes on. I saw Brian somewhere in the middle of that whirlwind when I returned to Pittsburgh with the family in tow to attend my brother John’s wedding to Melissa, a marriage that wouldn’t last for long. It was the first time Brian got to see Jake. He was three. My twins were five.
I was in the empty sanctuary at the church, squatting down in front of Jake’s chair, asking him if he wanted to sit in it for the ceremony or if he wanted to sit in the pew. I didn’t know that Brian was watching me at the time. Jake’s chair is adaptive. It straps him in, helps him sit up. Without it, he tends to fall forward.
“Do you want to sit in your chair while Uncle John gets married or do you want to get out of your chair and sit on one of these benches?” He signaled to me with his hand that he wanted the second option. Jake can speak, and I can understand him, but he doesn’t usually like to speak in public. He knows he doesn’t sound like other people. “Okay. You’ll have to sit next to your-“
He started shaking his head. He didn’t want somebody to have to hold him up.
“You can’t sit completely by yourself. You’ll fall. And I’m in the wedding, and so is your mom.”
“He can sit with me.”
I turned around and saw Brian standing behind me.
“Hey. I didn’t know you were there. Jake, this is Brian. He’s my friend. We went to school together.” Jake’s head hit the back of his chair as he tried to look at Brian, at all of him. “Can you bend down? You’re so tall, he’s straining.”
“Sorry.”
Brian squatted down beside Jake’s chair, his hand on the tray in front of it, and Jake immediately saw his watch. He slapped his hand on it.
“Wa.”
“He likes your watch.” I looked at mine. Time to go see if Alex and Tyler were ready to walk down the aisle as John’s ring bearers. I think I’d actually promised each of them a thousand dollars if they could do this without killing one another.
“Jake, Brian said he’ll sit with you for the ceremony. Do you want to do that or just sit in your chair?” He looked at Brian and slapped his watch again. “He wants to sit with you.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jake smiled. That he can do.
“Then you’re going to stay with Brian, and I’m going to go check on your brothers. Okay?”
“Kay.” Jake fell forward onto me as I removed his tray and loosened his seat belts on his chair. I picked him up and handed him to Brian. I gave Brian my cell phone number in case Jake changed his mind. He didn’t even know Brian. I wasn’t exactly sure this was a good idea.
“Jake, I’ll be back in a little while when Uncle John is ready to get married.”
“Bye.”
“Thanks, Brian.”
“No problem.”
I looked at them one last time and ducked into the back of the church to deal with the rest of my brood, leaving Jake’s chair just inside the door.
******************************
he doesn’t speak the language
he holds no currency
Three weeks after I got back to L.A., I called Brian and told him I needed a picture of him.
“Why?”
“For Jake. He’s been talking about you non-stop since the wedding.”
“He doesn’t really talk.” Always the smart ass.
“I’m speaking metaphorically. He uses an eye gazing system to communicate, has a chart with about thirty pictures on it. We can tell what he’s saying by what he’s looking at. He’s talking about you.”
“Okay, now I’m really confused.”
“He made me put a picture of a watch up there, and that’s all he’s talking about. I need a picture of you.”
“Okay. Okay. I’ll send you one. Jake’s a piece of work. He laughed through that entire ceremony. I like that kid.”
“And he loved you. He keeps saying something about your arm. I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
“My arm?”
“Or sleeves? Sometimes I think he means sleeves-“
“I was wearing cuff links. Maybe that’s what it was.”
“That’s what it is. He’s completely enamored with ‘man-jewelry.’ No wonder he won’t stop talking about you. You should see how excited he gets when we take him shopping. It’s disturbing.”
“Oh, man, your kid’s a fag, Matt.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you near him.”
“I’m gonna put him on the Armani mailing list. Immediately. You’re never too young for Armani.”
He did. And Prada and Gucci. And any other primarily homosexual male name brand he could think of. Jake’s eyes practically rolled back in his head every time he saw the mailman. Because of course, they were all addressed to him.
******************************
It's a little secret,
just The Robinsons' affair
I found out Lindsay was pregnant from Val over dinner one night.
“That’s a miracle of modern science.”
“It’s Brian’s.” I almost choked on my meatloaf. “Turkey baster, Matt. Calm down.” Eight months later Brian had a son. I called to tell him I was proud of him. He told me I was a lesbian.
“Does he look more like you or Lindsay?”
“Me, actually.” He sounded proud. It’s impossible not to, even if you are Brian Kinney. Made me smile.
“Then he must be pretty ugly.” He laughed.
“Yeah, maybe he’ll grow out of it.”
“I hope he grows up to be straight, just to spite you.”
“As long as he’s not a lesbian.”
******************************
O beautiful, for spacious skies
but now those skies are threatening
The first time I heard Justin Taylor’s name was on my answering machine at the end of a very long day at the office and an even longer evening spent at Alex and Tyler’s school at one of their baseball games. There’d been a picnic afterwards and keeping track of those two and trying to feed Jake at the same time while my wife socialized was enough to put me in a pretty shitty mood. My wife spent her days catering to Jake’s every need, and she needed to converse with other adults, other parents. I felt like I just needed a beer, a blow job, and maybe some Leno. Definitely, not all this crap. But this was my life, so whatever.
Alex and Tyler thought it was their destiny to race in the house whenever we got home from anywhere and see who could get to the answering machine first. That night it was Tyler. I was upstairs patiently explaining to Jake that he was going to take a bath, no matter what. I was pretty sure he had potato salad in his pants.
“No.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“Stop arguing with me.”
“Dad?”
“Tyler, not now. You and your brother need to take a bath and go to bed. It’s late.”
“Dad, there’s a message on the machine for you.”
“I’ll get it later.”
“Somebody’s dead.”
“What?”
“Somebody’s crying and somebody’s dead.”
“Stay with your brother.”
******************************
you are still the victim of the accidents you leave
His voice was almost impossible to understand. I had to play it back three times.
Matt, you don’t know him. I didn’t tell you because. I don’t know why. I think he’s dead. Somebody, this kid, hit him, hit him in the head with a bat, a baseball bat because I, because I showed up at his prom …I shouldn’t have, oh god, I shouldn’t have. I’m pretty sure he’s going to die. He’s going to die, he’s eighteen. Eighteen. He might already be dead. Fuck. I don’t know. I should go back in there; I shouldn’t be standing out here. His mother. Christ………. I don’t know what to do. Justin Taylor, that was his name. If he dies, Matt, if he dies, I’m coming out there. I can’t stay here. I killed him. I think I killed him.
Part 2