A Perfect Blindness

by W. Lance Hunt

  “Mind your own business, faggot.”

  I grabbed the door. “Sammy!”

  That’s when they showed up: his old man’s trailer trash friends—rednecks and hillbillies—six or seven of them.

  “You need to go home, boy,” the first of them said, lifting a section of pipe. “Now.”

  The others showed off a tire iron, a baseball bat, and more pipe. One pulled out a gun.

  I stared at them in a cold rage.

  “Sorry, Sammy,” I said quietly, hoping he’d understand. I turned and walked home.

  I couldn’t sleep that night. I sat in my bed and raged all night at how it should have been different. I knew we had to leave. Both of us, and as soon as we could. I imagined our escape. We’d run away tomorrow, stealing a car to get down to the highway, ditch that, and then hitch our way into Columbus. In two or three hours, it would be done.

  The next day, my old man told me Sammy’s family had gone to see Reverend Knox. “Wanted to see if Sammy’s soul could still be saved. Get him to think right. Heard they were fixing to move again.”

  “Sammy didn’t choose it. He’s who he is.”

  “God doesn’t make faggots!”

  “Your God does make queers!”

  “He chose perversion.”

  “You don’t choose to fall in love with another man.”

  “How d’ you know?”

  I nearly put my fist through his stupid face.

  It wasn’t until that next Saturday afternoon that I saw Sammy again. He knocked on my window and whispered for me to sneak out and meet him down by the creek. Took me about ten minutes to get there. I lied about hunting for crawdads.

  Sammy—he still looked bad. His face was red and swollen, and he had a limp.

  “Your old man. He can’t get away with this,” I said. “Look at you.” I reached out to touch Sammy’s face. He winced. “I’ll kill that inbred son of a bitch.”

  “No, Scott,” he said. “Please.”

  “Let’s leave now. Run away. Right now. Today.”

  “We’ll get out of here soon. It’s only a couple of weeks to graduation. My old man—I know him. He’ll calm down. By then I’ll have everything I need to set up in Columbus. Until then, you’ll keep playing, right? Then we keep playing until we make it. Promise me you’ll keep playing.”

  “Yes, Sammy, I promise.”

  “I promise to keep playing too, Scott. Until we get so big no one will care we’re friends. So big no one can touch us.” He looked so intense. “Promise me again.”

  “I promise, Sammy. I’ll never stop playing until we’re so big no one cares we’re together.”

  I don’t know how it happened, but his lips were pressing against mine. In that moment, the universe was perfect. I knew everything would happen exactly as we’d planned, inevitably. He would set up for us in Columbus. I would join him. We would play in a band together and get so big we wouldn’t even remember this shitty little place.

  In that moment, I was perfect. He was perfect. So were our plans. My skin tingled as if a million ants were crawling over me. I felt we were destined for this. I understood then why people rapturously cried out hallelujahs after one of Reverend Knox’s church revivals, for I too had been saved.

  That was the last time I ever saw him.

  After we parted, he went missing. Four days later, they found him dead—beaten to death. By seven or eight people, the sheriff thought.

  “One less of ’em to worry about,” the sheriff had said, looking straight at me. “See what happens to a boy when he doesn’t follow God’s Word.”

  I curled up on that bed in the Hotel Hong Kong and, for the first time since that night, I cried.

  “Sammy,” I pleaded. “You promised.”

  Chapter 61

  She Smiles

  —Jennifer—

  At home on a hot July afternoon, I walk into the kitchen, where my mother stands next to the toaster, staring at a newspaper folded into quarters. The sundress I’m wearing flows out behind me. I give my mother a kiss on the cheek.

  She regards me from the corners of her eyes with suspicion. Toast pops up from the toaster. My mother watches as I pull back the drapes, revealing how green it is outside.

  “I’m moving to New Orleans,” I announce.

  “Is that where Jonathan thinks it’ll be better?”

  “I don’t know what he think of New Orleans.”

  “Toast?” my mom asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Then why are you following him there?”

  “I’m not.”

  She scoffs and butters the toast with quick scraping noises.

  “I haven’t talked to him in three months. Since the day Chris’s boyfriend got shot.”

  “It scares me that you were living with the man who did it.”

  “It wasn’t his gun. It wouldn’t have happened at the loft.”

  “Still.”

  “Still nothing. What’s scary is doing things and not understanding why. What Charlene did is scary. Not seeing who you really are can be deadly.”

  “So do you know?”

  “I think so. More importantly, I absolutely know who I’m not.”

  My mom sets the plate with the toast down on the table next to me.

  “Thanks,” I say, picking up one of the slices and biting off a corner. “I’m not who I used to be. Now I’m going to find out what that means. I figure I can take the bus. Start from scratch. It won’t take me long to get a job.” I shrug. “French Quarter.” I take another bite. “Maybe I’ll learn some French.”

  “Don’t even try that with your mother. I know you too well.”

  “You’re right about the French. Probably.”

  My mom snaps up the paper and shoves it under her arm. “I’m meeting Sherri at the mall. When you decide what you’re really going to do, let me know.”

  “I’m moving to New Orleans.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Leave me your address then. I’m late.” Then she marches through the living room and out to the carport.

  I don’t care if you believe me or not.

  I hear her car start, idle a moment, and then pull away. The sound finally disappears in the bright afternoon light.

  I know, and who matters outside of that? I hug myself. I need to call Chris and Wendy. I’ll call Jonathan someday. I’m sure he’d understand. I’d like that.

  • • • • •

  It takes a few weeks, but I get all the arrangements made. Wendy’s even kept me on as a talent scout and local presence. It’ll be a start.

  On a warm, bright Friday in September, I hug Wendy and then kiss her cheek.

  The Greyhound man standing at the gate looks at my ticket. I push my boxes through the opening in the fence, and the driver helps me put them into the baggage compartment and then motions me to board, looking me over like men usually do. Ignoring him, I climb the stairs into the bus. I walk down the aisle, past seats almost as tall as my shoulders. In the back, I slide into a seat and look out the window.

  Wendy waves.

  A feeling of loss shoots through me, as if something has just died; then I feel giddy, excited, and nervous.

  Wendy holds up her watch and points at it.

  I bite my lip.

  She grabs her tit at me and then laughs, waves, and walks away.

  I fall back into my seat and draw my hands down my face.

  “It’s done. All me.”

  Ten minutes later, the bus crawls out of the berth, through the lot, up the ramp, and out into the air, and after the light turns green, Chicago starts melting away behind me.

  Then it hits me—the terrifying, glorious feeling of being alone, by choice. I’m finally alone to build my own real life.

  My heart races.

  The
sun shines.

  The bus rumbles.

  It’s finally happening. I smile and laugh.

  Chapter 62

  One Night in Subterranean

  —Jonathan—

  The hard chill of late October has settled in. The leaves have all quit their trees, leaving them empty.

  During the six months since Kenny was killed, I’ve found myself thinking back to everything that happened and wondering what might become of us. I suppose there’s something I’m trying to find in the past to help me survive all these losses—or at least hint that I can.

  Jennifer left a month ago to start anew in the Big Easy. Around the same time, I caught a short piece in the paper about Kolby, Green, and Michelson, Amy’s New York advertising firm; an up-and-coming designer, originally from Columbus, had been picked to head some major international campaign or other. Turns out it was Amy. I haven’t kept up with what happened to Scott. That lets me give the curt but honest answer “I don’t know” whenever a reporter calls.

  The band—we haven’t named it yet—has been sputtering to a start for some weeks now. We—Nancy, AnnMarie, and I—have been looking for a guitarist who gets that we don’t want to resurrect Mercurial Visions. Auditions have been sporadic and unproductive.

  The biggest problem is me. We all agree about needing a new sound, a new identity, yet, every song that beckons me features some form of Jennifer or Amy. Sometimes I try to trick myself by giving her a new name, or hiding her face behind a new one, but we always end up tumbling over the precipice together, caring nothing of dashing ourselves on the hard stone bottom at the end, as if no price could be too high to live so vividly, even as I stand in the ruins of who we’d been, alone once again, accompanied only by regret, as I do now, when there is only one thing left to do with her.

  I feel trapped by the sounds of all this heedless, impetuous passion. I’m intoxicated by it as well, when I’m being honest with myself. I’ve made a career of turning it into songs, after all.

  Added to my creative failures are the pressures of simply living life: lawyers arguing about who owns Mercurial Visions’ catalog and publishing rights; the finances of paying those lawyers and their filing fees, paying for rent and for food and electricity—all these things with diminishing royalties and merchandise sales, and no tour income—plus simply getting my head around Kenny being dead and Scott being the one who pulled the trigger. Accidently or not.

  At times I’ve thought about saying to hell with it all and going back to waiting tables, or trying to write commercial ditties, or getting a regular nine-to-five job. But that I’ve done, and it almost killed me. It would have, but for Amy.

  See, Amy. I am trapped. I’ve never been able to escape you—probably never will.

  So here I am, sitting in this big, empty space by myself, hating all this alone.

  The phone’s right there, a few steps away. It would be easy enough to get Amy’s work number. I’d probably have to leave a message with her assistant.

  Amy would eventually call back, of course.

  When she did, I’d say, “Hey you. It’s me.”

  What a great name for a song.

  Once again I find myself seeking the edge, wanting to take that one last step with her.

  No.

  I stand, shaking my head. We’ve been trying too hard to breathe life into a new band—one that is ours, as free of the past as we can make it. One where I’m not forced to hurl myself and my lover into a private chasm, to finally smash us apart and then run my fingers through our entrails to retrieve words and melodies. That exhausts me, and in the end whoever I loved and whatever we were are always gone. Used up. Sacrificed. Consumed. Use whatever word; it inevitably leads to a vast emptiness. I resent this and wish it could be different. Just once.

  I drum my fingers on the keyboard where I’ve been trying to coax something different out of the clamor of sounds cluttering my mind. The loudest are those that Jennifer and I came so close to living out when she was last here. The lyrics tell of luring her here and then betraying her trust by letting us give in to temptation. The melodies invoke the sounds of the few glorious minutes of being together, and then of us shattering apart once again, and then the sounds of regret take over—of being irredeemably broken. These are songs of our last moments together haunting us, hunting down all other memories we have of one another until none are left but those of our self-deceit and weakness.

  I hated those songs then. I fear them now: If I write them, they’ll become true for everyone who listens, no matter what actually happened. I’ll have to live it repeatedly. But you didn’t betray her. Look what happened. So why not get something from it. After all, what real choice do I have? Isn’t this who I am? Shouldn’t I accept this? And write songs of what I know be best? We were famous when I did.

  Turning the keyboard back on, I dabble out a few phrases I hear clearly among the many that crowd me from every side.

  Without hesitation, my fingers gambol along the keys into snippets of those melodies. So easy. Lines of lyrics whisper themselves to me. I know you all so well. You remind me of what living can be when every nerve’s alive.

  Running the tip of my tongue along bottom of my teeth, I spin on my keyboard’s stool.

  Then I start playing “Joie,” the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever created.

  Memories fly back of Jennifer when she lived here and I was so in love with her. Those, yes, but also memories of how I wrote it, of how I captured that sense of free-falling, as if there were no gravity.

  I start singing: “When there’s love, there are ghosts …” I’m flying.

  How I miss this—miss her. Miss being in love.

  Another memory then stirs, this one of the last time singing “Joie” punched through my numbness: one night in the Gingerman. At a birthday party. After an impossible call from Jennifer. I played it for the birthday girl, Michele.

  I played so well for her after being barren for so long.

  The scene unfolds in my mind—Michele looking stylish in a man’s white leather sport coat. Later that night, she brushed her lips on mine.

  I can feel their delicate touch.

  I kiss at the air for them.

  All the scents of that night had been so vivid. I try to breathe them in again now—those pungent, living smells: her musky-floral perfume, the hoppy maltiness of beer, the sweet herbaceous scent of Jägermeister, the rich reek of tobacco, the salty musk of my sweat—I remember each one so very clearly. As if I’m still impregnated with them, with her, and with that night, when I had no one else to play for.

  No one else. But her.

  Pushing away from the keyboard, I hurry to the address book and flip through the pages but discover Michele’s not in there.

  “Oh, what the hell is this?”

  I’d only ever seen her with Tanya or Randal. The last time was over a year ago, at her birthday party.

  Hoping he is still in touch, I call Randal. He says he hasn’t talked to her in a long time but does give me the last working number he has for her.

  “No idea if it’s still good,” he warns.

  I try anyway.

  The phone rings once, then twice, and then the machine comes on, confirming it’s still her number.

  Should I leave a message? Saying what? I tap my teeth together a few times. No. Stupid idea.

  As I pull the phone from my ear, I hear the phone getting picked up.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hi yourself,” Michele says.

  “This is Jonathan.”

  “I recognize the voice,” she says. “To what do I owe this?”

  “I was, ah, thinking about heading out tonight.”

  “And where were you thinking of going?”

  “Berlin. It’s Original Wave Night.”

  “When?”

  “Whenever.
I’m easy like that.”

  We pick eleven thirty. After hanging up, I think back to the desultory now-and-then flirts we’ve offered each other over the years—especially that delicate kiss on her birthday—and I’m right there again, overlooking a precipitous fall: one more step and I escape this empty sleepwalk existence.

  Getting ready quickly, I rush to leave before I can change my mind.

  At Berlin, I can’t find her. Fits perfectly, doesn’t it; Amy’s in New York, Jennifer’s in New Orleans, and Michele’s avoiding the whole problem altogether.

  Leaning against the bar, I stare into my scotch.

  “So you’re the smartest of us four,” I say. “Doing the smart thing. Staying away.”

  Not that your being so very smart helps me out of my hole.

  Don’t be an asshole, Jonathan. She’s saving us both a lot of pain.

  I shake my head.

  A moment later, a hand rests on my shoulder.

  It’s Michele. She’s wearing that same white leather dinner jacket, with a ruffled red men’s shirt and bell-bottoms. Her hair is slicked back and pinned with rhinestone clips.

  I smile in relief tinged by trepidation.

  Looking into my eyes as if she understands what is happening here perfectly, she brushes her lips on mine just as she did at the Gingerman, and then she takes my hand and leads me onto the dance floor, where our legs become intertwined and our hips press together as all our flirting turns physical and we act out what we’d do without clothes.

  The DJ starts spinning “Sin with Me,” and I sing along for her, melting into the rhythm and the warm textures of her body. After it ends, she leads me off the floor and out into the street.

  I don’t ask where she’s taking me; I don’t care.

  Suddenly she pulls me into the narrow alley behind this clothing store called The Alley.

  The streetlight coats Michele in a luxuriant yellow color, sowing flecks of gold in her smoky-gray eyes. She tilts her head one way and then the other, and then she straightens it back up. After popping her lips several times, she reaches a finger under my chin, and slowly brings my face closer to hers—close enough to feel her breath. Her finger holds me there. Her lips purse. The finger urges me closer until only wisps of our breath separate us. The finger drops away. She waits.