Beyond the Yellow Brick Road-Chapter 48-Legacy (the finale) - Part 2/5
And now we begin Part 2 of the BYBR finale. Go back to Part 1. You comments are appreciated! Enjoy - Plum
BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD-CHAPTER 48-LEGACY (the finale) - Part 2/5
BRIAN'S POV
we may lose, we may win,
though we may never be here again
Going back to New York wasn't easy-not that you thought it would be. Daniel's place felt sterile just like before, only more so now because most of his personal things had spent the last few months migrating to Gabe's. Daniel's mood was somber though he was clearly appreciative for the company. The two of you split up shortly after arriving; Daniel to his bedroom to box up the rest of his clothes while you were taxed with taking down all the artwork, most of it Justin's.
"Are you sure you don't want these paintings?" Dan had asked, and you firmly shook your head and explained, "Uh, no. Justin would go off the deep end if I brought these paintings home. If they're with you, that's where he wants them to be." Quietly, you boxed each one and then had to ponder how to label them. A few of them were titled, signed and dated on the back, but many bore only a date and 'JT.' You ended up putting the size, the main attributes like 'blue and gold abstract,' and the date on each one. When you were done, you stared at the seven or so stacked boxes in front of you, picked up a marker and wrote 'Justin Taylor, artist' on the front of each one. Next, Daniel asked you to pack up the studio. You smiled and obliged him, your hand resting on his shoulder as he stood in the doorway of the room. He couldn't bear to step inside he told you, and you believed him because he looked as if he might shatter. "It's okay; don't worry about it," you said, "I don't mind at all. Go back to what you were doing."
As you surveyed the dusty supplies, easels and random oddities left behind, it was clear to you that most of it belonged to Harper. You put together cardboard boxes of different sizes, lined them up on the floor and tried to bring order to what a heartbroken artist leaves behind in a situation like this. Pieces of half-finished projects and random photographs went in one box, supplies of every variety imaginable went in another, and personal items in the last. You found all sorts of things during the task, including notes that Harper and Justin had left for one another when their schedules were conflicting. One from Harper to Justin made you laugh, 'J--Amelia sits at your desk and pretends she's you when you're not here. I try to film her but she won't do it on camera, lol. --H' And then you found a piece of black chalk that clearly belonged to Justin; you could tell because of the shape, the clear indentation of the callous on his finger.
The entire process seemed to be going fairly smoothly for both you and the Doc until you realized he wasn't upstairs with you anymore. You could hear what sounded like sobbing through a vent in the studio. You made your way downstairs and found Daniel sitting on the floor in his office, his arms around his bent knees, his face buried in the gap. There were piles of books on the floor next to a half-filled box. You found a spot and sat down as well, the corner of a hefty textbook jabbing your thigh in the process.
"Dan," you said softly, and then you repeated yourself with a little more courage, "Dan, tell me what's wrong." He didn't look up at you, but rather shook his head and kept his face hidden. You scanned the room for a box of tissues and nudged his arm with it, "It's okay. You can tell me."
He looked up. "The bookmarks," he choked out. You didn't understand what he meant but he continued, "They're in everything, so many of these, I can't take them out." That was when you noticed that about a third of the books had torn slips of paper sticking out. "He did this, Alan did. He was always reading in here...trying to solve his own problems." You picked up a book and opened it to the marked page: an explanation of the effects of long term electro-shock therapy. "Don't take it out," Dan said, sounding frantic, "Don't."
"I won't," you reassured him. "Just leave them in, Dan. There's no harm in that."
"I'm supposed to be putting this behind me," he said with disappointment tingeing his voice.
"Wanna know something?" you asked him.
"Sure."
"After Justin got hurt, I didn't change the sheets until he woke up from his coma. I threw blankets and shit on top of my bed if I had some trick over or something. Those sheets...they smelled like him, and I...was afraid...they never would again." Daniel looked up at you, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve as you continued, "And these bookmarks are nothing, Dan. Nothing. I had this white silk scarf on the night Justin was bashed, and in some type of cruel fashion-curse, I put it around his neck when I told him goodbye. A minute later he was bleeding out on the cement. I kept that fucking thing, crusty and stained with his blood around my neck for weeks. It's gone now; I've thrown it away, but sometimes I still feel it around my neck like a phantom or something."
"You've been in love with Justin for a really long time, huh?"
"Yeah," you sighed, "It feels like an eternity when I think about shit like that."
"I want closure, Brian, but I feel like it gets off on eluding me."
You shifted your legs and tried to get comfortable again in the small space, "You know, I had the same conversation with Justin last night. Maybe you and he are sort of alike? It's like you both think this process is a race or something. That there's a winner at the end?"
"'Physician, heal thyself;' haven't you ever heard that?" Daniel asked.
"Of course, I have, but it doesn't mean that it's an instant download or an app on your phone or something."
The doctor seemed distracted after that and had scooted over to his desk, a drawer opened and its contents pilfered. "Tell me again what you said said..about that scarf?"
"That I kept, that I wore it?" you asked.
Daniel kept digging and digging in that jam-packed drawer, "No, you said it was white, didn't you?"
"Yeah, white silk--"
"Found it," Dan said as he pulled a brochure out of a very full folder, sending about half of the contents all over the floor. "Is this it?" he asked you as he held up what must've been a flyer from Justin's first art show. You took the paper from him and stared down at a picture of a painting destroyed months ago--destroyed, and yet, still taking up space in your house and in your mind.
"Yeah, this is it," you admitted.
"I tend to keep things like this; I mean, I wanted to buy it--" Daniel confessed.
"But you were too late," you added.
He sighed, "Timing is everything."
"I feel guilty just looking at a picture of this painting," you confessed, "Justin would shred this."
You handed it back to Daniel for safekeeping as he spoke, "You know, I didn't really understand it until now. I mean, I didn't understand why Justin was so cagey about it and denied that there was anything violent about it, but now, I sort of get why he said that to me."
You were confused, "Get what?"
Dan explained, pointing to the white stripe in the painting, "Maybe Justin doesn't know what it's about because it isn't his point of view. Maybe it's your point of view, Brian."
"He was hit, not me."
"Right, but you just said that you gave him that scarf about a minute before he was hit. Maybe Justin was painting what he thought you saw seconds later...blood and the scarf on the ground."
"That doesn't make any sense," you argued. "If it's my point of view, yeah, I saw those things but I saw him."
Daniel kept turning the brochure and staring at the picture of the painting, "Hmm, perhaps he either intended for that scarf to represent him or he left himself out on purpose because he doesn't think you saw him at all or maybe--"
You cut him off, "Because he doesn't think that I see him now?"
"Maybe."
"How can I not 'see' him? I don't even get that."
Dan tried again, "Maybe he didn't feel like you see him as he sees himself? I'm not sure."
You felt a thickening sensation forming in your mouth as you thought about the painting and Justin's anger about finding it in your possession. "Maybe it's even more insidious than that," you suggested, "Maybe he thinks that he was lying on the cement bleeding out, and I was more concerned about myself. Maybe that's why he got so pissed when he saw the painting in my home office. He though it represented a lack of growth on my part?"
"Or just the opposite," Dan postulated, "Maybe hanging that painting in your home represented your ability to move forward, to face what happened, to be okay with facing it every single day."
"Because I wasn't afraid of it anymore?"
"Well, who really knows? I mean, it's all conjecture; art is very subjective for everyone, but it's something to think about. A fear of change, especially in the people we love and rely on, can be terrifying to most people, but when you take someone like Justin who was literally struck down on the cusp of adulthood, that fear of losing complete control of your world can paralyze people. Alan was that way, too, so much so that he basically hosted what were almost multiple personalities to keep his relationships with those he valued exactly as he remembered them."
You needed some air. "Will you be okay if I go smoke for a few--?" you asked Daniel as you pointed toward the front door.
"Of course," he replied, "Take your time." And then he stopped you, his hand on your leg, "But keep this flyer. It belongs with you. I don't need it anymore." You took it, folded it in half and tucked it away in the pocket of your jeans.
************
JONATHON MASSEY'S POV
Jesus, take the wheel
Life since Alan's death hadn't been easy for you. You went from feeling like an outsider around Daniel and his art groupies to actually being one when everyone went away. At first, you blamed yourself for taking Daniel's friendship for granted all these years, for thinking that he would always need you to talk to if nothing else. Never in a million years did you think that the guy would meet somebody at a fucking funeral, fall in love, and for all practical purposes, move away.
When you spend your livelihood analyzing other people's problems, you often leave little time or inclination to analyze your own. Not only had you lost Daniel, but you and Richard had parted ways that day as well. Burying a guy you barely knew meant saying goodbye to everyone and made your lack of a life glaringly apparent. And because unexpected losses can lead to unexpected coping strategies, you found yourself texting Richard around the start of summer when Daniel had decided he'd rather be in Pittsburgh than New York. You never expected Richard to answer your texts as they were mostly benign pleasantries inquiring about his well being that made it clear that no response was expected. But respond he did.
You met him for coffee in mid June. It was too hot for coffee that day and ultimately too hot for clothing as well because the two of you ended up fucking back at your place. For all the awkwardness over coffee, being in bed with him felt comfortable; you could tell he really wanted a connection to something, and you felt like you were the portal to whatever it was. You didn't know what to say when it was over; you just watched Richard get dressed in his hideous cargo shorts and sandals. He announced that he'd let himself out, and with zero emotion in his voice, offered to meet your for 'coffee' again next week. Same time; same place. You said, "Okay," the way you tell a mechanic who's just explained what's wrong with your car to go ahead and fix it--pretending you understand.
And so the ritual began and though the initial meeting place changed from time to time, the two of you sat and talked every week like nothing untoward had ever happened between you and never would. He started buying your coffee or muffin or whatever because, "You have to buy the condoms. That's not something I can do." You didn't know what this thing you had with him was; you just knew it felt like a forbidden form of tricking. Maybe that's why you kept doing it or maybe you were just lonely.
You'd often go for a walk after Richard left those afternoons because you felt sort of queasy and disgusted with yourself if you stayed in your townhome. Those walks eventually led to Daniel's empty home where you'd sit on the brick steps in front of his door and smoke exactly one cigarette. Sometime in early August when you'd been sitting there for about ten minutes, you saw an older man encumbered with tons of plastic bags coming toward you. There was something familiar about him, and he walked past you the first time without saying anything, but when he turned around at the corner and started coming back, he must've found his courage. "You're that other doctor, aren't you?" the disheveled man asked.
Your eyes were squinting in the afternoon sun, so you shielded them with your hands, "Excuse me?"
The man spoke again; his plastic bags clattering as he dropped them on the ground; you realized they were filled with bottles and cans, "The doctor that lived here; you're his friend."
"Do I know you?"
The man continued as if he wasn't listening to your half of the conversation anyway, "Do you live here now?"
"No," and then it dawned on you and your nose, "Are you Stitch?"
"Yeah." His eyes kept shifting all over the place. "Got any bottles or cans? That bottle of water there; can I have that?"
You looked down at the plastic bottle next to you, "I'm not done yet, but when I am, you can have it." He sat down on a step to wait.
At that first meeting, you learned that Stitch's community, Alan's family, had fallen apart after the funeral. Some of his residents didn't want to go back underground having come upstairs again. Lewis, who'd been charged with protecting the tunnel in their absence hadn't done a very good job. Things were stolen that day, and Lewis wasn't capable of running the routes that Alan ran and getting all the supplies they needed. Stitch had been able to keep his room, but that was about it. He didn't much like the new 'family' that had moved in with him, so he quit worrying about an entire group of people and began 'canning' to make money to provide for himself. Every night, he'd head to the recycling center and deposit the days collection. Sometimes they were so backed up with other people depositing recyclables that he ended up sleeping there. You could never leave your bags alone, he explained, or all of your hard work would be stolen. You asked him how much that day's enormous haul on the sidewalk in front of you would bring and he told you, "Fifteen or twenty dollars." You tried to give him some cash, and he ignored your hand asking instead where 'the other doctor' was. "He spends most of his time in Pittsburgh right now," you said.
"With Justin?" Stitch asked.
You laughed, "Uh no, with Gabe. You remember him?"
"Zeek's brother," Stitch said matter-of-factly.
"They're a couple," you said, and then you added, "And I don't think he likes to come back here very often; you know...because...."
"Yeah, I know," Stitch said, "That's sort of why I made this my route," and then he pointed to the bushes--less than three feet away from you-where Alan was murdered, "I kind of say 'hi' to him every day."
"Do you still paint?" you asked him, and Stitch shook his head and replied, "Nah. No fun without Al. He had so many ideas. Now, painting just makes me sad."
......
And so your routine continued, you sat on Daniel's steps once a week accompanied by a bag of any bottles or cans you'd accumulated that week, and Stitch would come by nearly every time. The two of you exchanged pleasantries and recyclables and sometimes he bummed a cigarette and then you went back home feeling somehow cleansed of the sin you'd committed earlier that day. On one particular September afternoon, you were enjoying the cooling weather and babysitting your plastic bottles when the door to Daniel's home opened behind you and scared the fuck out of you. You turned around expecting to see Dan and were surprised instead to see a six foot tall guy digging in the pocket of his jeans. Your bag of bottles rattled down the steps as you stood and said, "Brian?"
He came outside to join you, "Jon? What's up?"
"What are you doing here?" you asked him.
With a cigarette pursed between his lips, Brian explained while pointing inside the place, "Helping the doc pack some shit up and get this place on the market."
Your stomach dropped, "He's selling?"
Brian seemed a bit taken aback by your reaction, "Uh, yeah...maybe you should talk to Dan? He's here."
************
everybody knows that the war is over,
everybody knows that the good guys lost
Daniel's office looked like the aftermath of an explosion, and the expression on his face when he realized it was you standing in the doorway and not Brian was hard to decode. "Jon, hey. What are you doing here?" he asked.
It took you a second or two "Long story," you said, "I kind of come here once a week to gather my thoughts."
Daniel stepped carefully over open boxes and piles of books until he could get to you and then he gave you an awkward hug. "I've missed you," he said.
Your mind had to tell your arms to encircle his body at first, your emotions having been stuffed away so compactly. "Same here," you responded. He felt thinner than you remembered. As the hug expired, you asked him, "What are you doing? Brian said you're selling this place. You're moving to Pennsylvania?" There was fear of being left behind hidden in your voice.
"Selling? Yes," Dan said, "But so Gabe and I can get a new place together here. He has to come back...his parents are retiring."
He'd done it, you thought; he finally fell for a guy only a few years younger who wasn't a starving artist. You felt guilty for the amount of relief you felt and it fueled a small smile, "So you're not leaving here for good?"
Dan gave you a rather incredulous look, "You thought I'd leave the city? And not even tell you?"
You stuffed your hands in your pockets and shrugged, "I didn't know. You don't really come back here much anymore...and I don't guess I blame you."
He looked like he was about to explain himself to you but the conversation was interrupted by Brian who--with a cigarette still burning in his fingers--had appeared in the hallway, "Hey, Stitch is here. He's asking for you, Jon."
......
Instead of keeping your usual routine of walking back home after these weekly jaunts, you offered to stay and help. You packed up the contents of Daniel's liquor cabinet and went through the kitchen and living room boxing up personal items. Later that night, the three of you went out to dinner, and you divulged what you knew about Stitch's situation, how everything had changed. "Those light boxes I sent?" Brian asked.
"Stolen, I think," you said. "Light's a pretty hot commodity when you live underground."
"I tried to give him cash before he left today," Brian admitted, "But he wouldn't fucking take it. He'd rather cart hundreds of bottles around in a broken grocery cart all day than take a hundred bucks from me."
"He wants to earn his own living," you said.
"Some living," Brian said.
You changed the subject and asked Daniel when he thought he'd start seeing patients again. "After Gabe and I get settled, I guess."
"I'm proud of you for falling for someone your own age," you told Daniel, "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Thank you," Dan said.
Brian huffed and rolled his eyes at you, "Speaking of men your own age, how's Father Dick?"
"We broke up," you reminded both of your dinner companions.
Brian leaned forward and stared you down, asking, “So?”
"Why are you looking at me like that?" you asked him.
He smiled, "Because once a week, you're on Daniel's porch in the middle of a workday smoking. That does not compute."
Daniel's eyes grew two sizes as he caught on, "Wait? Are you? Oh god, you're not; are you, Jon?"
You'd forgotten how queens don't even need verbs in their sentences to be understood. "So? It's my early day," you tried.
"You don't have early days, Massey," Brian said, "You're a workaholic, like me. The only reason I leave work on time is because I have prime blond ass waiting for me every day."
"And how is Justin?" you asked.
"Don't change the subject. You're fucking Richard again, aren't you?" Brian asked.
You sighed and signaled the waiter for the check, "No comment."
Daniel crossed his arms, "What are you doing to him, Jon? I think he loved you."
"And he left me, if anyone's interested in the facts of the situation." You wrestled the check from Brian and slapped your credit card down with conviction. "You both need to calm down; it's all he wants, trust me. We chat beforehand, have a nice time at my place, and then he just gets up and leaves. I don't get it, but I'm not gonna fuck with it."
Brian slapped you on the shoulder, "I like it, Doc. It's carnal...and very macho."
Daniel took a different approach, "I feel so bad for him."
"Why?" you demanded, "I'm not hurting him." (You'd had just about enough of this.)
"Because he's just so gay," Daniel explained, "And he's had to hide his whole life. Clearly, these indiscretions are a type of a physical confession for him. Maybe it's nice what you're doing for him, maybe it's merciful."
"Gee, thanks, Dan. 'Merciful' is exactly what I was going for." The three of you began to exit the restaurant and Brian turned on a dime and stopped both of you, "Wait. Is the wardrobe situation better or worse?"
"No name polo shirts, cargo shorts, and sandals," you revealed.
"But it's September," Brian stressed.
"Bears don't hibernate until the winter," you reminded him.
Brian shifted his eyes as if he was giving what you said deep thought and then he said, "Dan's right. It's a mercy fuck."
"Both of you can go fuck yourselves," you told them, "And the sooner the better."
......
You convinced both Brian and Dan to spend the night at your place that night, instead of Daniel's. It wasn't a hard sell, but it surprised you that Brian went along with it. You knew that you'd get nothing but shit from them all night about Richard, but still, it felt good to be among friends.
************
HARPER COLLIN'S POV
if I could walk around I swear I'll leave,
won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
September in Georgia felt little like autumn as you sat in Justin's Jeep outside the house you grew up in. No one appeared to be home, probably at work, you surmised. Sam and Justin had exited the vehicle and were taking a walk; you could still see them at the end of the street before they turned the corner; Sam's camera swinging beneath his arm. You'd asked both of them to leave you alone for awhile. Coming back here felt nothing like you thought it would.
You noticed it the second Justin turned into the neighborhood. You expected the houses of old friends and neighbors to be different colors, but you never expected them to appear so worn down, like everyone who lived inside them just quit caring. There were random shutters and screens missing and every fourth or fifth house was trying to buck the 'gone by the wayside' trend by over-improving with dark brown slatted fences constructed to shield themselves from their low class neighbors. Nothing felt right either. The houses seemed much closer together than you recalled, and even the types of trees seemed somehow different. The landscape that used to be your never-ending playground felt claustrophobic and forgotten.
Your old house, then a pale lime green and now a soft gray, was a two story plus basement with a winding back deck that had to battle the crazy hills and valleys of the terrain. By the time you got to the top of that wooden labyrinth, you were always afraid of falling down and smashing into the hard ground below. Underneath the wooden structure, where you and Alan played together, was always home to copperhead snakes and black widow spiders. It was shaded, though, so it beat getting sunburned in summer. The dirt was hard and sloped up the sides of the cinderblock foundation; you remember carving a kitchen into it so you could play house. From your vantage point in the Jeep, you couldn't see the backyard, only that it was fenced in now. Surely, your favorite swing set was long gone. It was rusted by the time you were six but you loved the way it creaked when you pumped your legs back and forth; it had a language all its own. You swung for so long and so hard that you'd pull the legs right out of the ground at your highest peak causing a hard thunk on each swing back. If Alan swung with you, you had to be sure he was going backward when you were going forward or the set would've come unhinged. The back of your legs was always imprinted with the plastic seat when you were finished so you could never hide your favorite escape. From the back of the house, your memories were kinder: your mom calling you to dinner from the window over the kitchen sink, your dad firing up the lawn mower and ready to tackle that slope or responding to your squeals when you found a hornet's nest beneath the deck. The backyard reminded you of happy times.
Your gaze turned three hundred and sixty degrees back to your old front door, back to the windows of your old room that looked out over the front yard, as your thoughts turned to Alan finding your mother's body in the downstairs bathroom. You can still smell the air full of fear and confusion and helplessness. As you wondered if the current inhabitants knew what happened in that house, you could see straight through to the next street where Sam and Justin were making their way around the block and back to you. You wanted to shake this emptiness before they rounded the corner. You didn't want to tell them that you felt this place was dying just like you sometimes felt you were.
"Tell me what you want me to shoot, okay, babe?" Sam asked you when they returned. "I'm not sure what's important to you here."
"Me either," you said, "It doesn't feel anything like I thought it would." Maybe you could walk this sinking feeling off, you thought, so you indicated that you wanted to walk with them this time so the three of you began another trek as you replied, "Maybe because I was little, everything looked bigger? You think you'd feel safe and sort of homey when you come back to your old house, but I don't feel that way at all. Now, everything looks so plain, so unremarkable...so conquered."
"Well, the world looks bigger when you're only three feet tall," Sam said.
As the three of you made your way, you pointed out houses you remembered, neighbors you knew or feared and found yourself standing in front of the house that was directly behind your childhood home. You looked left, looked right, and then motioned for Sam and Justin to follow you as you walked through their backyard and made it to the creek that separated that house from yours. Sam came and stood beside you, his arm around your waist. You told both he and Justin what you remembered, pointing out that the old makeshift bridge the kids used to cross the creek was gone. "Come here," you said as you began to walk toward the mouth of the creek where it oozed out of a sewer-like tunnel. Sam began to shoot as you spoke, "I had forgotten about this. Alan and I were always so spooked by this tunnel. We were always afraid that someone scary was going to walk out of it and grab us or something. He went from being afraid of these tunnels to living in them. He was so much braver than I ever was." It was almost time for the leaves to start falling, decomposing and creating a mushy mesh for the fall and winter months. "We loved it back here, though," you said, "Because we had access to all of these yards and didn't have to cross streets to get through the whole neighborhood. I hardly remember playing inside our house at all." You looked over at Justin and smiled; he was sitting on a log and sketching. "One summer, Alan and I were running back and forth across this bridge playing a game or something and one of our neighbors saw us and ran out and pulled us back. We were so scared, but he knew there was a nest of baby copperheads under the plywood, and we didn't. He went down and flipped the plank onto the hill, exposing them, and then told us to head for the street and walk back home on the pavement. That happened about two weeks before my mother...."
Sam took a picture of you standing there and no one said a word.
......
That night after the adventure was over and the three of you were back at your nice hotel (Justin had put his foot down after one night in an Econo Lodge), the heavy feelings of hopelessness began to set in. You sat outside on the balcony of your room with a cold bottle of beer in your lap. Justin joined you; Sam was inside downloading his pictures. "Did you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish?" Justin asked you.
You sighed, "I don't know. I guess so."
"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't felt very productive since Alan...you know...either," he admitted to you.
You nodded, "I don't even need to produce anything new. The demand for our initial work after that interview, we're still riding that wave. Every indie-gallery in the city wants us. They want you, too," you told Justin, "But you're gone."
"They still call," he confessed.
"Well, of course they do. Our work sells and the economy is a piece of shit. Sometimes I feel like I'm making bank at the expense of Alan's memory. Sam says he feels that way, too, but we have to eat...."
Justin picked an odd moment to change the subject, "Did you know...Daniel's coming back to the city soon?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Justin's eyebrows rose, "Zeek and Gabe, they're moving back to the city to run the restaurant. Gabe and Daniel are going to move in together--"
"Where?" you asked, fearful of the answer.
"Daniel's going to sell his place; they're going to find a new place together."
"How long have you known this?" you asked him.
"Found out two nights ago."
"And you're just now telling me? Sam! Come out here!"
......
Homecomings, you decided, are by their very nature unpredictable.
.
Go on to Beyond the Yellow Brick Road-Chapter 48-Legacy (the finale) - Part 3/5
Lyrics for Part 2 come from The Eagles Take It Easy, Carrie Underwood's Jesus Take the Wheel, Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows again, and Miranda Lambert's The House That Built Me.
BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD-CHAPTER 48-LEGACY (the finale) - Part 2/5
BRIAN'S POV
we may lose, we may win,
though we may never be here again
Going back to New York wasn't easy-not that you thought it would be. Daniel's place felt sterile just like before, only more so now because most of his personal things had spent the last few months migrating to Gabe's. Daniel's mood was somber though he was clearly appreciative for the company. The two of you split up shortly after arriving; Daniel to his bedroom to box up the rest of his clothes while you were taxed with taking down all the artwork, most of it Justin's.
"Are you sure you don't want these paintings?" Dan had asked, and you firmly shook your head and explained, "Uh, no. Justin would go off the deep end if I brought these paintings home. If they're with you, that's where he wants them to be." Quietly, you boxed each one and then had to ponder how to label them. A few of them were titled, signed and dated on the back, but many bore only a date and 'JT.' You ended up putting the size, the main attributes like 'blue and gold abstract,' and the date on each one. When you were done, you stared at the seven or so stacked boxes in front of you, picked up a marker and wrote 'Justin Taylor, artist' on the front of each one. Next, Daniel asked you to pack up the studio. You smiled and obliged him, your hand resting on his shoulder as he stood in the doorway of the room. He couldn't bear to step inside he told you, and you believed him because he looked as if he might shatter. "It's okay; don't worry about it," you said, "I don't mind at all. Go back to what you were doing."
As you surveyed the dusty supplies, easels and random oddities left behind, it was clear to you that most of it belonged to Harper. You put together cardboard boxes of different sizes, lined them up on the floor and tried to bring order to what a heartbroken artist leaves behind in a situation like this. Pieces of half-finished projects and random photographs went in one box, supplies of every variety imaginable went in another, and personal items in the last. You found all sorts of things during the task, including notes that Harper and Justin had left for one another when their schedules were conflicting. One from Harper to Justin made you laugh, 'J--Amelia sits at your desk and pretends she's you when you're not here. I try to film her but she won't do it on camera, lol. --H' And then you found a piece of black chalk that clearly belonged to Justin; you could tell because of the shape, the clear indentation of the callous on his finger.
The entire process seemed to be going fairly smoothly for both you and the Doc until you realized he wasn't upstairs with you anymore. You could hear what sounded like sobbing through a vent in the studio. You made your way downstairs and found Daniel sitting on the floor in his office, his arms around his bent knees, his face buried in the gap. There were piles of books on the floor next to a half-filled box. You found a spot and sat down as well, the corner of a hefty textbook jabbing your thigh in the process.
"Dan," you said softly, and then you repeated yourself with a little more courage, "Dan, tell me what's wrong." He didn't look up at you, but rather shook his head and kept his face hidden. You scanned the room for a box of tissues and nudged his arm with it, "It's okay. You can tell me."
He looked up. "The bookmarks," he choked out. You didn't understand what he meant but he continued, "They're in everything, so many of these, I can't take them out." That was when you noticed that about a third of the books had torn slips of paper sticking out. "He did this, Alan did. He was always reading in here...trying to solve his own problems." You picked up a book and opened it to the marked page: an explanation of the effects of long term electro-shock therapy. "Don't take it out," Dan said, sounding frantic, "Don't."
"I won't," you reassured him. "Just leave them in, Dan. There's no harm in that."
"I'm supposed to be putting this behind me," he said with disappointment tingeing his voice.
"Wanna know something?" you asked him.
"Sure."
"After Justin got hurt, I didn't change the sheets until he woke up from his coma. I threw blankets and shit on top of my bed if I had some trick over or something. Those sheets...they smelled like him, and I...was afraid...they never would again." Daniel looked up at you, wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve as you continued, "And these bookmarks are nothing, Dan. Nothing. I had this white silk scarf on the night Justin was bashed, and in some type of cruel fashion-curse, I put it around his neck when I told him goodbye. A minute later he was bleeding out on the cement. I kept that fucking thing, crusty and stained with his blood around my neck for weeks. It's gone now; I've thrown it away, but sometimes I still feel it around my neck like a phantom or something."
"You've been in love with Justin for a really long time, huh?"
"Yeah," you sighed, "It feels like an eternity when I think about shit like that."
"I want closure, Brian, but I feel like it gets off on eluding me."
You shifted your legs and tried to get comfortable again in the small space, "You know, I had the same conversation with Justin last night. Maybe you and he are sort of alike? It's like you both think this process is a race or something. That there's a winner at the end?"
"'Physician, heal thyself;' haven't you ever heard that?" Daniel asked.
"Of course, I have, but it doesn't mean that it's an instant download or an app on your phone or something."
The doctor seemed distracted after that and had scooted over to his desk, a drawer opened and its contents pilfered. "Tell me again what you said said..about that scarf?"
"That I kept, that I wore it?" you asked.
Daniel kept digging and digging in that jam-packed drawer, "No, you said it was white, didn't you?"
"Yeah, white silk--"
"Found it," Dan said as he pulled a brochure out of a very full folder, sending about half of the contents all over the floor. "Is this it?" he asked you as he held up what must've been a flyer from Justin's first art show. You took the paper from him and stared down at a picture of a painting destroyed months ago--destroyed, and yet, still taking up space in your house and in your mind.
"Yeah, this is it," you admitted.
"I tend to keep things like this; I mean, I wanted to buy it--" Daniel confessed.
"But you were too late," you added.
He sighed, "Timing is everything."
"I feel guilty just looking at a picture of this painting," you confessed, "Justin would shred this."
You handed it back to Daniel for safekeeping as he spoke, "You know, I didn't really understand it until now. I mean, I didn't understand why Justin was so cagey about it and denied that there was anything violent about it, but now, I sort of get why he said that to me."
You were confused, "Get what?"
Dan explained, pointing to the white stripe in the painting, "Maybe Justin doesn't know what it's about because it isn't his point of view. Maybe it's your point of view, Brian."
"He was hit, not me."
"Right, but you just said that you gave him that scarf about a minute before he was hit. Maybe Justin was painting what he thought you saw seconds later...blood and the scarf on the ground."
"That doesn't make any sense," you argued. "If it's my point of view, yeah, I saw those things but I saw him."
Daniel kept turning the brochure and staring at the picture of the painting, "Hmm, perhaps he either intended for that scarf to represent him or he left himself out on purpose because he doesn't think you saw him at all or maybe--"
You cut him off, "Because he doesn't think that I see him now?"
"Maybe."
"How can I not 'see' him? I don't even get that."
Dan tried again, "Maybe he didn't feel like you see him as he sees himself? I'm not sure."
You felt a thickening sensation forming in your mouth as you thought about the painting and Justin's anger about finding it in your possession. "Maybe it's even more insidious than that," you suggested, "Maybe he thinks that he was lying on the cement bleeding out, and I was more concerned about myself. Maybe that's why he got so pissed when he saw the painting in my home office. He though it represented a lack of growth on my part?"
"Or just the opposite," Dan postulated, "Maybe hanging that painting in your home represented your ability to move forward, to face what happened, to be okay with facing it every single day."
"Because I wasn't afraid of it anymore?"
"Well, who really knows? I mean, it's all conjecture; art is very subjective for everyone, but it's something to think about. A fear of change, especially in the people we love and rely on, can be terrifying to most people, but when you take someone like Justin who was literally struck down on the cusp of adulthood, that fear of losing complete control of your world can paralyze people. Alan was that way, too, so much so that he basically hosted what were almost multiple personalities to keep his relationships with those he valued exactly as he remembered them."
You needed some air. "Will you be okay if I go smoke for a few--?" you asked Daniel as you pointed toward the front door.
"Of course," he replied, "Take your time." And then he stopped you, his hand on your leg, "But keep this flyer. It belongs with you. I don't need it anymore." You took it, folded it in half and tucked it away in the pocket of your jeans.
************
JONATHON MASSEY'S POV
Jesus, take the wheel
Life since Alan's death hadn't been easy for you. You went from feeling like an outsider around Daniel and his art groupies to actually being one when everyone went away. At first, you blamed yourself for taking Daniel's friendship for granted all these years, for thinking that he would always need you to talk to if nothing else. Never in a million years did you think that the guy would meet somebody at a fucking funeral, fall in love, and for all practical purposes, move away.
When you spend your livelihood analyzing other people's problems, you often leave little time or inclination to analyze your own. Not only had you lost Daniel, but you and Richard had parted ways that day as well. Burying a guy you barely knew meant saying goodbye to everyone and made your lack of a life glaringly apparent. And because unexpected losses can lead to unexpected coping strategies, you found yourself texting Richard around the start of summer when Daniel had decided he'd rather be in Pittsburgh than New York. You never expected Richard to answer your texts as they were mostly benign pleasantries inquiring about his well being that made it clear that no response was expected. But respond he did.
You met him for coffee in mid June. It was too hot for coffee that day and ultimately too hot for clothing as well because the two of you ended up fucking back at your place. For all the awkwardness over coffee, being in bed with him felt comfortable; you could tell he really wanted a connection to something, and you felt like you were the portal to whatever it was. You didn't know what to say when it was over; you just watched Richard get dressed in his hideous cargo shorts and sandals. He announced that he'd let himself out, and with zero emotion in his voice, offered to meet your for 'coffee' again next week. Same time; same place. You said, "Okay," the way you tell a mechanic who's just explained what's wrong with your car to go ahead and fix it--pretending you understand.
And so the ritual began and though the initial meeting place changed from time to time, the two of you sat and talked every week like nothing untoward had ever happened between you and never would. He started buying your coffee or muffin or whatever because, "You have to buy the condoms. That's not something I can do." You didn't know what this thing you had with him was; you just knew it felt like a forbidden form of tricking. Maybe that's why you kept doing it or maybe you were just lonely.
You'd often go for a walk after Richard left those afternoons because you felt sort of queasy and disgusted with yourself if you stayed in your townhome. Those walks eventually led to Daniel's empty home where you'd sit on the brick steps in front of his door and smoke exactly one cigarette. Sometime in early August when you'd been sitting there for about ten minutes, you saw an older man encumbered with tons of plastic bags coming toward you. There was something familiar about him, and he walked past you the first time without saying anything, but when he turned around at the corner and started coming back, he must've found his courage. "You're that other doctor, aren't you?" the disheveled man asked.
Your eyes were squinting in the afternoon sun, so you shielded them with your hands, "Excuse me?"
The man spoke again; his plastic bags clattering as he dropped them on the ground; you realized they were filled with bottles and cans, "The doctor that lived here; you're his friend."
"Do I know you?"
The man continued as if he wasn't listening to your half of the conversation anyway, "Do you live here now?"
"No," and then it dawned on you and your nose, "Are you Stitch?"
"Yeah." His eyes kept shifting all over the place. "Got any bottles or cans? That bottle of water there; can I have that?"
You looked down at the plastic bottle next to you, "I'm not done yet, but when I am, you can have it." He sat down on a step to wait.
At that first meeting, you learned that Stitch's community, Alan's family, had fallen apart after the funeral. Some of his residents didn't want to go back underground having come upstairs again. Lewis, who'd been charged with protecting the tunnel in their absence hadn't done a very good job. Things were stolen that day, and Lewis wasn't capable of running the routes that Alan ran and getting all the supplies they needed. Stitch had been able to keep his room, but that was about it. He didn't much like the new 'family' that had moved in with him, so he quit worrying about an entire group of people and began 'canning' to make money to provide for himself. Every night, he'd head to the recycling center and deposit the days collection. Sometimes they were so backed up with other people depositing recyclables that he ended up sleeping there. You could never leave your bags alone, he explained, or all of your hard work would be stolen. You asked him how much that day's enormous haul on the sidewalk in front of you would bring and he told you, "Fifteen or twenty dollars." You tried to give him some cash, and he ignored your hand asking instead where 'the other doctor' was. "He spends most of his time in Pittsburgh right now," you said.
"With Justin?" Stitch asked.
You laughed, "Uh no, with Gabe. You remember him?"
"Zeek's brother," Stitch said matter-of-factly.
"They're a couple," you said, and then you added, "And I don't think he likes to come back here very often; you know...because...."
"Yeah, I know," Stitch said, "That's sort of why I made this my route," and then he pointed to the bushes--less than three feet away from you-where Alan was murdered, "I kind of say 'hi' to him every day."
"Do you still paint?" you asked him, and Stitch shook his head and replied, "Nah. No fun without Al. He had so many ideas. Now, painting just makes me sad."
......
And so your routine continued, you sat on Daniel's steps once a week accompanied by a bag of any bottles or cans you'd accumulated that week, and Stitch would come by nearly every time. The two of you exchanged pleasantries and recyclables and sometimes he bummed a cigarette and then you went back home feeling somehow cleansed of the sin you'd committed earlier that day. On one particular September afternoon, you were enjoying the cooling weather and babysitting your plastic bottles when the door to Daniel's home opened behind you and scared the fuck out of you. You turned around expecting to see Dan and were surprised instead to see a six foot tall guy digging in the pocket of his jeans. Your bag of bottles rattled down the steps as you stood and said, "Brian?"
He came outside to join you, "Jon? What's up?"
"What are you doing here?" you asked him.
With a cigarette pursed between his lips, Brian explained while pointing inside the place, "Helping the doc pack some shit up and get this place on the market."
Your stomach dropped, "He's selling?"
Brian seemed a bit taken aback by your reaction, "Uh, yeah...maybe you should talk to Dan? He's here."
************
everybody knows that the war is over,
everybody knows that the good guys lost
Daniel's office looked like the aftermath of an explosion, and the expression on his face when he realized it was you standing in the doorway and not Brian was hard to decode. "Jon, hey. What are you doing here?" he asked.
It took you a second or two "Long story," you said, "I kind of come here once a week to gather my thoughts."
Daniel stepped carefully over open boxes and piles of books until he could get to you and then he gave you an awkward hug. "I've missed you," he said.
Your mind had to tell your arms to encircle his body at first, your emotions having been stuffed away so compactly. "Same here," you responded. He felt thinner than you remembered. As the hug expired, you asked him, "What are you doing? Brian said you're selling this place. You're moving to Pennsylvania?" There was fear of being left behind hidden in your voice.
"Selling? Yes," Dan said, "But so Gabe and I can get a new place together here. He has to come back...his parents are retiring."
He'd done it, you thought; he finally fell for a guy only a few years younger who wasn't a starving artist. You felt guilty for the amount of relief you felt and it fueled a small smile, "So you're not leaving here for good?"
Dan gave you a rather incredulous look, "You thought I'd leave the city? And not even tell you?"
You stuffed your hands in your pockets and shrugged, "I didn't know. You don't really come back here much anymore...and I don't guess I blame you."
He looked like he was about to explain himself to you but the conversation was interrupted by Brian who--with a cigarette still burning in his fingers--had appeared in the hallway, "Hey, Stitch is here. He's asking for you, Jon."
......
Instead of keeping your usual routine of walking back home after these weekly jaunts, you offered to stay and help. You packed up the contents of Daniel's liquor cabinet and went through the kitchen and living room boxing up personal items. Later that night, the three of you went out to dinner, and you divulged what you knew about Stitch's situation, how everything had changed. "Those light boxes I sent?" Brian asked.
"Stolen, I think," you said. "Light's a pretty hot commodity when you live underground."
"I tried to give him cash before he left today," Brian admitted, "But he wouldn't fucking take it. He'd rather cart hundreds of bottles around in a broken grocery cart all day than take a hundred bucks from me."
"He wants to earn his own living," you said.
"Some living," Brian said.
You changed the subject and asked Daniel when he thought he'd start seeing patients again. "After Gabe and I get settled, I guess."
"I'm proud of you for falling for someone your own age," you told Daniel, "Never thought I'd see the day."
"Thank you," Dan said.
Brian huffed and rolled his eyes at you, "Speaking of men your own age, how's Father Dick?"
"We broke up," you reminded both of your dinner companions.
Brian leaned forward and stared you down, asking, “So?”
"Why are you looking at me like that?" you asked him.
He smiled, "Because once a week, you're on Daniel's porch in the middle of a workday smoking. That does not compute."
Daniel's eyes grew two sizes as he caught on, "Wait? Are you? Oh god, you're not; are you, Jon?"
You'd forgotten how queens don't even need verbs in their sentences to be understood. "So? It's my early day," you tried.
"You don't have early days, Massey," Brian said, "You're a workaholic, like me. The only reason I leave work on time is because I have prime blond ass waiting for me every day."
"And how is Justin?" you asked.
"Don't change the subject. You're fucking Richard again, aren't you?" Brian asked.
You sighed and signaled the waiter for the check, "No comment."
Daniel crossed his arms, "What are you doing to him, Jon? I think he loved you."
"And he left me, if anyone's interested in the facts of the situation." You wrestled the check from Brian and slapped your credit card down with conviction. "You both need to calm down; it's all he wants, trust me. We chat beforehand, have a nice time at my place, and then he just gets up and leaves. I don't get it, but I'm not gonna fuck with it."
Brian slapped you on the shoulder, "I like it, Doc. It's carnal...and very macho."
Daniel took a different approach, "I feel so bad for him."
"Why?" you demanded, "I'm not hurting him." (You'd had just about enough of this.)
"Because he's just so gay," Daniel explained, "And he's had to hide his whole life. Clearly, these indiscretions are a type of a physical confession for him. Maybe it's nice what you're doing for him, maybe it's merciful."
"Gee, thanks, Dan. 'Merciful' is exactly what I was going for." The three of you began to exit the restaurant and Brian turned on a dime and stopped both of you, "Wait. Is the wardrobe situation better or worse?"
"No name polo shirts, cargo shorts, and sandals," you revealed.
"But it's September," Brian stressed.
"Bears don't hibernate until the winter," you reminded him.
Brian shifted his eyes as if he was giving what you said deep thought and then he said, "Dan's right. It's a mercy fuck."
"Both of you can go fuck yourselves," you told them, "And the sooner the better."
......
You convinced both Brian and Dan to spend the night at your place that night, instead of Daniel's. It wasn't a hard sell, but it surprised you that Brian went along with it. You knew that you'd get nothing but shit from them all night about Richard, but still, it felt good to be among friends.
************
HARPER COLLIN'S POV
if I could walk around I swear I'll leave,
won't take nothing but a memory
from the house that built me.
September in Georgia felt little like autumn as you sat in Justin's Jeep outside the house you grew up in. No one appeared to be home, probably at work, you surmised. Sam and Justin had exited the vehicle and were taking a walk; you could still see them at the end of the street before they turned the corner; Sam's camera swinging beneath his arm. You'd asked both of them to leave you alone for awhile. Coming back here felt nothing like you thought it would.
You noticed it the second Justin turned into the neighborhood. You expected the houses of old friends and neighbors to be different colors, but you never expected them to appear so worn down, like everyone who lived inside them just quit caring. There were random shutters and screens missing and every fourth or fifth house was trying to buck the 'gone by the wayside' trend by over-improving with dark brown slatted fences constructed to shield themselves from their low class neighbors. Nothing felt right either. The houses seemed much closer together than you recalled, and even the types of trees seemed somehow different. The landscape that used to be your never-ending playground felt claustrophobic and forgotten.
Your old house, then a pale lime green and now a soft gray, was a two story plus basement with a winding back deck that had to battle the crazy hills and valleys of the terrain. By the time you got to the top of that wooden labyrinth, you were always afraid of falling down and smashing into the hard ground below. Underneath the wooden structure, where you and Alan played together, was always home to copperhead snakes and black widow spiders. It was shaded, though, so it beat getting sunburned in summer. The dirt was hard and sloped up the sides of the cinderblock foundation; you remember carving a kitchen into it so you could play house. From your vantage point in the Jeep, you couldn't see the backyard, only that it was fenced in now. Surely, your favorite swing set was long gone. It was rusted by the time you were six but you loved the way it creaked when you pumped your legs back and forth; it had a language all its own. You swung for so long and so hard that you'd pull the legs right out of the ground at your highest peak causing a hard thunk on each swing back. If Alan swung with you, you had to be sure he was going backward when you were going forward or the set would've come unhinged. The back of your legs was always imprinted with the plastic seat when you were finished so you could never hide your favorite escape. From the back of the house, your memories were kinder: your mom calling you to dinner from the window over the kitchen sink, your dad firing up the lawn mower and ready to tackle that slope or responding to your squeals when you found a hornet's nest beneath the deck. The backyard reminded you of happy times.
Your gaze turned three hundred and sixty degrees back to your old front door, back to the windows of your old room that looked out over the front yard, as your thoughts turned to Alan finding your mother's body in the downstairs bathroom. You can still smell the air full of fear and confusion and helplessness. As you wondered if the current inhabitants knew what happened in that house, you could see straight through to the next street where Sam and Justin were making their way around the block and back to you. You wanted to shake this emptiness before they rounded the corner. You didn't want to tell them that you felt this place was dying just like you sometimes felt you were.
"Tell me what you want me to shoot, okay, babe?" Sam asked you when they returned. "I'm not sure what's important to you here."
"Me either," you said, "It doesn't feel anything like I thought it would." Maybe you could walk this sinking feeling off, you thought, so you indicated that you wanted to walk with them this time so the three of you began another trek as you replied, "Maybe because I was little, everything looked bigger? You think you'd feel safe and sort of homey when you come back to your old house, but I don't feel that way at all. Now, everything looks so plain, so unremarkable...so conquered."
"Well, the world looks bigger when you're only three feet tall," Sam said.
As the three of you made your way, you pointed out houses you remembered, neighbors you knew or feared and found yourself standing in front of the house that was directly behind your childhood home. You looked left, looked right, and then motioned for Sam and Justin to follow you as you walked through their backyard and made it to the creek that separated that house from yours. Sam came and stood beside you, his arm around your waist. You told both he and Justin what you remembered, pointing out that the old makeshift bridge the kids used to cross the creek was gone. "Come here," you said as you began to walk toward the mouth of the creek where it oozed out of a sewer-like tunnel. Sam began to shoot as you spoke, "I had forgotten about this. Alan and I were always so spooked by this tunnel. We were always afraid that someone scary was going to walk out of it and grab us or something. He went from being afraid of these tunnels to living in them. He was so much braver than I ever was." It was almost time for the leaves to start falling, decomposing and creating a mushy mesh for the fall and winter months. "We loved it back here, though," you said, "Because we had access to all of these yards and didn't have to cross streets to get through the whole neighborhood. I hardly remember playing inside our house at all." You looked over at Justin and smiled; he was sitting on a log and sketching. "One summer, Alan and I were running back and forth across this bridge playing a game or something and one of our neighbors saw us and ran out and pulled us back. We were so scared, but he knew there was a nest of baby copperheads under the plywood, and we didn't. He went down and flipped the plank onto the hill, exposing them, and then told us to head for the street and walk back home on the pavement. That happened about two weeks before my mother...."
Sam took a picture of you standing there and no one said a word.
......
That night after the adventure was over and the three of you were back at your nice hotel (Justin had put his foot down after one night in an Econo Lodge), the heavy feelings of hopelessness began to set in. You sat outside on the balcony of your room with a cold bottle of beer in your lap. Justin joined you; Sam was inside downloading his pictures. "Did you accomplish what you wanted to accomplish?" Justin asked you.
You sighed, "I don't know. I guess so."
"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't felt very productive since Alan...you know...either," he admitted to you.
You nodded, "I don't even need to produce anything new. The demand for our initial work after that interview, we're still riding that wave. Every indie-gallery in the city wants us. They want you, too," you told Justin, "But you're gone."
"They still call," he confessed.
"Well, of course they do. Our work sells and the economy is a piece of shit. Sometimes I feel like I'm making bank at the expense of Alan's memory. Sam says he feels that way, too, but we have to eat...."
Justin picked an odd moment to change the subject, "Did you know...Daniel's coming back to the city soon?"
"Huh? What do you mean?"
Justin's eyebrows rose, "Zeek and Gabe, they're moving back to the city to run the restaurant. Gabe and Daniel are going to move in together--"
"Where?" you asked, fearful of the answer.
"Daniel's going to sell his place; they're going to find a new place together."
"How long have you known this?" you asked him.
"Found out two nights ago."
"And you're just now telling me? Sam! Come out here!"
......
Homecomings, you decided, are by their very nature unpredictable.
.
Go on to Beyond the Yellow Brick Road-Chapter 48-Legacy (the finale) - Part 3/5
Lyrics for Part 2 come from The Eagles Take It Easy, Carrie Underwood's Jesus Take the Wheel, Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows again, and Miranda Lambert's The House That Built Me.