Through the Mirrorball

by Browatzke, Rob

  I had been pulling blades of grass out as I talked and ripping them apart with my hands, and now the tears were starting to come and I was grasping that well-mown lawn and squeezing my fingers into the dirt. “Fuck, Taylor! I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be sitting here crying like a . . . like a little faggot over this. I’m over thirty for fuck sake. This was all behind me. You were all behind me, Taylor. Why does it all of a sudden feel like I’m seventeen again, and I just lost you, and nothing will ever be right the way we were right?

  “And that’s total bullshit. See the guy in that car over there? He’s right. He feels right when I’m with him, and when I’m not with him, part of me is missing. The best part of me is missing. The things I have done to that man, and he’s still there. Still putting his life on hold so I can come cry at a fucking cemetery over some kid I loved half a lifetime ago. It’s ridiculous! Oh my God, what am I even doing here? How is this my life? I’m talking to a fucking tombstone like it’s my priest and counselor and lover all in one.

  “Somewhere, someone wants me to do just what I’m doing. They want me to freak out and feel pain. They won’t win, Taylor. I won’t let them win. It’s the same them that made you put that gun to your head and pull that trigger all those years ago. It’s the them that took you from me. They’re the fucking faggots, Taylor, not you and me. They’re wrong. And every day, more and more people see that. The world is changing, Taylor, and oh I wish you had stayed long enough to see that. They lost, Taylor. I lost you, but they lost the war.”

  I stood up. TAYLOR HOWARD - 1984–2001. That wasn’t all that he had left behind. Those were just words on a piece of rock. He had left behind something in me, and whatever that was, it was, for the first time, making me stronger than ever.

  “C’mon, Crazy, bring it. Bring me what you got. I’m ready.” I placed my hand on Taylor’s tombstone. It was rough and real, but it was just a rock. “Good-bye, Taylor. I didn’t kill you. You didn’t even really kill you. They did. They’ve killed kids all over the country, with their hate and their fear and their ignorance, their arrogance. But they’re going to die off, and sooner than later, no kid will die just because they dared to love.

  “Two hearts, one heart, Taylor. I love you.”

  I walked away, to where Steven was waiting in his car. I opened the door and sat down and leaned across and kissed him hard and long.

  “What was that for?” he asked, when I finally pulled away.

  “Because you are everything I have ever needed or wanted, and my life is better with you in it, and no matter what has happened or will happen, nothing will ever change that I love you today and always,” I said, the words stumbling out of my mouth. “And I just wanted you to know that.”

  His face flushed, and he stuttered trying to reply. “I . . . I . . .”

  I put my finger over his lips. “You don’t need to say anything. You just had to hear it.”

  “Thank you,” he said, starting the car. “I love you, too.” He looked at me, and his face was still red. “Where to?”

  “Just drive. Let’s just be anywhere but here.”

  Chapter 40

  We drove around my hometown and I pointed out pieces of my past as we passed them. The elementary school I went to. The park I used to play in. The house where I grew up. There were shades attached to all those places. Nathan once lived across the street from that house. Taylor and I kissed in that park, more than once. Nathan and I had been best friends in those early years.

  But showing them to Steven, seeing them through his eyes, I only saw them as places that made me into who I was, and right then, I was feeling pretty good about who that person was. Yes, I was unemployed, but yes, I could fix that. Yes, I maybe had a substance problem, but no, I wasn’t craving anything, and hadn’t even thought about it for a day.

  We drove by the high school. That was a bit harder. There, in those walls, so much had happened. But it was a lifetime ago, and none of it mattered now.

  And then we drove by Taylor’s old house. The tree was gone, chopped down. The lawn was unruly. It looked deserted. I got Steven to stop there, and I sat in the car, holding his hand, and looking at the place where Taylor had lived and died. The garage was hard to ignore. That was where he had hidden, with his father’s gun.

  “It’s okay,” Steven said. “It’s in the past. There was nothing you could have done.”

  “I know,” I said, looking out at that house, that garage, that bedroom window. It was dark and deserted and there was nothing left of Taylor there. It was words on a rock. That’s all it was.

  “Let’s go see my parents,” I said. “I think I’ve seen everything I needed to see.”

  “Actually, Alex, I made us dinner plans. I told them we’d be there after.”

  “Oh? Where at?”

  “I googled a place while you were at the gravesite. Had to find somewhere in this town that makes pumpkin ravioli.” He smiled at me, and suddenly, I began flipping through a calendar in my head. Had it really been . . . Was today really . . . “One year ago today is when we met.”

  A year. Already a year. Only a year. And he remembered. He must have known it was coming. I would have. I should have. Here he was, on this visit with the ghosts of Alex past, and all the while, he was just waiting for me to remember that a year ago, I stalked his sexy-ass home from the grocery store and backed into his VW Rabbit and started off our summer together.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t even clue in.”

  “You would have, if you hadn’t had so much going on. Besides, it doesn’t mean anything other than I’m glad I’m here, with you, today.” He leaned over and kissed me. It was one of those kisses that start soft and just when you sigh and it starts to get deeper, it’s over. “Let’s go eat, Crazy.”

  The wine we had had a year ago was replaced with water, but it was like that again. The romantic atmosphere. Eating food off each other’s plates. Maybe the pumpkin ravioli wasn’t as good as back home, but it was still pretty good, because I was with Steven, and Steven was with me, and it was just the two of us. How it was supposed to be.

  But if things were going to be fixed, he had to know something.

  “I have a problem,” I said.

  “With your ravioli?” He smiled.

  “No,” I said, trying not to laugh. “No. With drugs and alcohol.”

  He looked at me. “I know.”

  “No, you don’t know.”

  “You’ve told me, and you’re going to try to stop.” He paused. “No. You’re going to stop.”

  “It’s more than that. I needed them, Steven. Like, needed.” I reached across the table and took his hand. “It’s been a while. I thought it was just fun. And I know I told you before it was fun that was behind me. But . . .” I was staring at the wall behind him. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “It’s been with me for so long. I panicked,” I said. “When I was going to propose. I was so stupid, Steven. I am so sorry.” I couldn’t help but cry now. “Everything since has just been such a mess, and I’ve just been so lost. But I see it now. I see that all the booze and coke just took me further away from myself. From who I wanted to be. From who I wanted to be for you. For us.”

  “Alex . . .”

  “No, I know what you’re going to say. It has to be for me. Quitting. I can’t stop for you, or for us. I have to do it for me. That’s what I’m saying. I want to. Quit. For me, I mean. I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

  Steven was crying too. And I knew I had made him cry for so many things over these past few months. This time, there was pride in his eyes. Pride, and love.

  “Thank you, Steven.”

  “For what?”

  “For coming to rescue me.”

  “You’re the one who came to rescue me,” he said.

  “I just found you,” I said. “You’re saving me from myself, and that’s amazing. I love you.”

  I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed his fingers. He squeezed my hand tight and I l
et it drop. We finished dinner, and the sun was already starting to go down. It was warm out though, and we went for a walk around the park. I kissed Steven where a lifetime ago I had kissed Taylor. There were other people in the park. I felt them watching us. One couple, walking arm in arm, smiled at us as we held hands walking along the lake. Things were different now than they had been. I wasn’t scared. I was with Steven, and things were right.

  “We should get to my parents,” I said. “They’re going to be going to bed soon, and I know they’ll want to visit.” We headed back to the car, kissing once more in the twilight. “Let’s not tell them anything though. I don’t want them to worry.”

  “Of course not. It’s your call.”

  “They’re probably going to expect us to sleep together.”

  “That won’t be a problem for me.” He smiled. I loved his smile. I loved him.

  “Or for me. I just didn’t want to assume. I don’t know . . . I’m not sure where we are.”

  “We’re right here,” he said, with a wave of his hand.

  “I meant with us.”

  “I know what you meant. We’re where we are, Alex. There’s so much going on. We can’t put any more pressure on. We’re just . . . where we are.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too. Let’s go.”

  To get from the park where we had walked to where my parents now lived took us back down some of the same streets. Steven followed my directions as I stared out the window at the places I knew so well, my face against the cold glass. We were driving down the street of Taylor’s house again when I saw it. A light on. In what used to be Taylor’s bedroom.

  “Stop please.”

  “Who knows who lives there now?” Steven said. “Are you sure?”

  “Please. Just for a second.”

  He pulled up out front of Taylor’s house again. I got out of the car. “What are you doing?” Steven asked.

  “Just a second,” I said.

  I walked up to the house, my steps heavy. Was I going to knock on the door? It was just the one light on. It had been years, Steven was right. Who knew who lived here now? Even if it was still Taylor’s family, what would I say? Would they want to see me? Of course not. I was outside of the window though, and I had to look in.

  I stood under the tree, staring up at Taylor’s bedroom window. I jumped up, grabbed a branch, and pulled myself into the tree. There was no curtain, and the light was on, and there was no one there. But I knew the room. I knew the desk. I knew the bed. Nothing had changed. It was Taylor’s room, frozen in time. Nothing had changed in thirteen years. The jacket on the chair at the desk was Taylor’s jacket.

  “Who are you?” I spun around at the sound of a woman’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Sorry, I . . .” I saw her, standing there. I knew this woman. “Mrs. Howard?”

  “Sorry, do I know you?”

  “Yes. It’s Alex Lewison. I was friends with your son.”

  “Alex? Is that really you?” Her hands, which had been on her hips, dropped to her sides. “But why . . .”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “Well, you did. Traipsing about in the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is everything okay?” It was Steven, coming up the driveway, past the garage.

  “Yes. Steven, this is Taylor’s mom. Mrs. Howard . . .”

  “Don’t say that name!” Her voice was like a whip. Her face grew stony, and then softened. “Sorry, please, just don’t say his name. I try not to ever say it.”

  “We’re sorry to disturb you. We’ll just go.”

  I started to walk away. I met Steven and we headed back to the car.

  “Alex . . .” she said softly behind me. “I never thought you’d come here . . .”

  “Again, I am sorry. I was in town, and I just . . .” I didn’t know what to tell this woman.

  “I know what you just. I just the same. You’ve come all this way. You might as well come in now. We can talk for a bit. Just please, don’t say his name.”

  I looked at Steven, who half-nodded, half-shrugged. I looked back at Mrs. Howard, and half-smiled. “Okay.”

  Chapter 41

  It was eerie, stepping foot in that house. I was stepping back in time. Everything was still the way it had been. The furniture was the same, in the same spots. It was quiet, too quiet. Steven was right at my side, and Mrs. Howard was just a few steps in front of us. The house was the same, but she wasn’t. If the house hadn’t aged a day, she had aged two for every one that had passed.

  “Please, have a seat,” she said.

  We sat on the couch, and she sat in a chair across from us. She stared at us, through us. Minutes passed.

  “It’s a lovely home you have here,” Steven said, awkwardly attempting to break the silence.

  “Why, thank you,” she said, looking around as if she were seeing it for the first time. “It’s not much, but we call it home.”

  “Is your husband coming home soon?”

  “What? Oh, no. He isn’t here anymore. He’s . . .” She looked around, and then looked at us. “Alex. You’re all grown up. I wonder . . .”

  “Wonder what?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “Wonder what he would look like, if he had grown up.” She started to cry.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Howard,” Steven said.

  “He was such a good boy, wasn’t he, Alex? I wish . . . oh, I wish . . .” Again, she trailed off.

  “He was the best, Mrs. Howard. What do you wish?” Inside, I was screaming. This woman could have helped her son. She could have helped him! Is that why she was broken? From the guilt of knowing she could have saved him?

  “Please, call me Sheila. Howard: that was my husband’s name.”

  “What do you wish?”

  She got up and started to slowly walk around the room, rearranging an ornament here or there, running her hands over the furniture. “I wish a lot of things, Alex. I wish I could be seeing my boy here, all grown up like you. He never had the chance. His father, my husband, was a very conservative man. He was an angry man, too. He knew how things should go, how things should be.

  “I always knew about him, about Taylor.” Her face changed when she said his name, and it was a change I could feel, in the goose bumps on my arm, in the pit of my stomach. He was with us, Taylor, in the room with us. More than just a memory. “Well, I suspected. He was a soft boy, a quiet boy. He didn’t like to do what the other boys liked to do. Michael, that was my husband’s name, he suspected too. He drove Taylor so hard, but the more he drove him, the quieter Taylor became. As Taylor grew up, he learned to say what he had to say and when he had to say it, to appease his father. Things found a balance.

  “Here, come with me,” she said suddenly, and she walked down the hallway and up the stairs. I looked at Steven, who nodded, and I followed her, with Steven following me, a line of people going farther into the house where Taylor had lived and died, farther into the past. She stopped outside of Taylor’s room. I did not want her to open that door. I did not want to see that room. She was standing there with her hand on the doorknob, and she was frozen, as if she too did not want to see that room.

  “That night I found you, the two of you, doing what you were doing, I wish I could take it back. I wish I had listened outside this door before I opened it. I wish I hadn’t seen what I had seen. I wish you hadn’t been doing what you were doing, not when his father was in the house. But wishes won’t change what happened.” She opened the door.

  “I opened the door, and there you were, with him, on him. Do you remember, Alex?”

  How could I ever forget? I nodded. She stepped into the room, and I followed. There was his bed, where we had been. The air was musty.

  “I didn’t mean to say anything. Believe me, I knew what kind of man he was. I didn’t mean to say anything. But the
words came spilling out and it was too late. He exploded. You were gone already. That was smart. But he beat Taylor that night; beat him so badly, and when I tried to stop him, he beat me, too. It was my fault, he said, that Taylor was that way.

  “But at least when he was beating me, he wasn’t beating Taylor. I tried to save my boy that much at least. It was too late, of course. He was already so bruised. I sat there with him, that night, after his father had stormed out of the house. I sat here on this bed, and I stroked my baby boy’s hair as he cried himself to sleep.

  “I thought maybe it would pass. I thought maybe Taylor would be more careful. I thought maybe my husband would think that the beating had done what he had always said it would do. ‘I will beat that boy into a man if I have to,’ he had said, so many times. I wish I had listened. I wish I had taken Taylor and run away. I wish so many things.”

  The words were pouring out of her and ripping into me. My eyes were closed, and I could picture everything as it happened. What had happened after I left. What I had always known had happened. I stood there, Steven’s hand on my shoulder. Steven’s hand gave me strength. Her words were just words. It didn’t matter now. It was in the past.

  “What happened next?” Steven asked, and for once, it was me who knew why he said what he said. He knew, and I suddenly knew, too, that she had been waiting to tell this story for thirteen years.

  “Taylor went to school the next day. He was wearing this jacket,” she said, walking over to the desk and running her hand over the jacket that hung on the back of the chair. I knew that jacket well. I remembered seeing him wrap himself up in it, that last day that I saw him. I remembered the day it had been raining, and I had left my jacket at home, and he loaned me his, even though it meant he got wet. That was the kind of boy he was.