by TL Gehr
The knuckle-busters come flying at my face. I’m not even aware of making the decision to move. All I know is that one second I’m on the ground and the next I’m on my feet and the razor is slicing across flesh. Knucklebuster’s hand flies to his cheek. He tries in vain to hold his face together as blood gushes from the wound, I round on the other guy, just as he makes a grab for me. I slice across his chest and I must nick an artery because he’s instantly covered in red like in a Tarantino movie. The adrenaline in my veins won’t let me stop. I’m aware of Brian crying out, of blows flying other than the ones I’m dodging, but I’m in survival mode and all I can think is escape, escape, escape.
Malena shouts something, Billy responds, “Fuck this,” and I turn just in time to see him level his gun at me. He squeezes the trigger as someone tackles me to the ground. The blade clatters out of my hand as I slam down on the concrete. I’m ready to throw my attacker from me… and then I see that it’s Brian, and I see that he’s been shot.
46
Brian
The green light swings overhead, filling my vision. I don’t feel pain, just a blooming heat.
Philip is calling my name. He turns my head and his face swims into focus. His cheek’s swollen and he’s streaked with red. Is any of that his?
Everyone’s shouting. Mom’s yelling at Billy, the other guys are screaming in pain. I managed to get the bald one in the nads and Philip cut the others up real good.
Philip gathers me to his chest and I’m wrapped in the smell of his body. It’s stale and sour, but it’s him. He’s holding me in his arms again.
He pulls off his turtleneck and my cheek falls against a soft gray t-shirt. I’m about to tell him it’s too cold for that when he presses the fabric to my shoulder and it’s like he’s stabbing me with a hot poker. I cry out and writhe against him, but he doesn’t ease up on the pressure.
“You’re going to be okay,” he says against my hair and then he shouts, “You need to call an ambulance!”
I half expect them to just attack us again. I can’t help like this. Even if it weren’t for the pain, my head’s still swimming with smack. My limbs feel heavy and I’m so sleepy. Or maybe it’s not the heroin, maybe Philip lied. Maybe I’m not going to be okay.
No one acknowledges his shout.
“You asshole!” Mom yells. “That’s my son!”
“It’s a liability!”
The bald guy is chanting, “What the fuck, what the fuck,” probably trying to staunch the bleeding for one or both of his friends.
“He needs help, now!” Philip’s voice rumbles through his chest. To me it sounds much louder than all the other voices, but maybe because I’m right up against him. “If you don’t get him medical help right now, he’s going to die.” The panic in his voice is palpable. I try to remember that Philip is a very good liar.
“What the fuck do you think this is?” Billy yells back. “We just going to bring—”
“It’s my son!”
“We can’t have strangers coming in here.”
There’s something important I need to tell Philip. Something he needs to be aware of… I grab at his shirt while Mom instructs the bald guy to get his friends out of here and see to them. Mom and Billy fall back to their argument as I manage to lower Philip’s ear to my mouth.
“Phone, in my bag. They must take it.”
I hope he knows what I mean. Billy and Mom are now screaming at each other, a tangle of words I can’t make out. The pain as Philip presses down on my wound is unbearable. It’s pushing all other thoughts from my head. I can’t really follow what’s going on.
There’s another gunshot. “I’m warning you!” Mom says. “My boy’s not dying here. That wasn’t the plan.”
“Fuck the plan. I’m not getting caught over this.”
“Call the ambulance and go,” Philip shouts over Billy. “Take the money, take the car and go. Call the ambulance from the road. Just let me save him.”
“You’re coming with us,” Billy says.
“I’m a nurse, I can keep him alive until they get here. If I go with you, he’s as good as dead.”
I turn my head in time to see Mom leveling the gun at Billy, “Make the call.”
“You fucking—”
She waves it meaningfully. “Make the fucking call.”
I don’t know what I’m more surprised at, that she cares whether I live or die or that Billy actually calls 911 from the laptop they used to call Philip’s parents. There’s a weird computer filter over his voice but the bastard actually asks for an ambulance and gives an address. “You happy, bitch?”
“Yeah, super fucking happy.” She indicates the backpack with the gun. “Bring that. Fill it with as much stuff as you can.”
“This is a mistake. They’ve seen our faces.”
“Faces shmaces, we’ll disappear. My son’s not dying here.” She glances at Philip. “Right?”
“Depends how quickly they get here.”
Billy opens the bag and sweeps his drug paraphernalia into it. Mom makes him leave ahead of her. I hear her calling that it’s time to “ride out”, and she’s still shouting as her voice fades away.
Then it’s just me, Philip and the pain. He kisses my lips and whispers, “I love you too.”
47
Brian
First there’s the pain in my shoulder, like twenty needles being pushed into the skin. Then there’s my name. “Brian?”
Gradually more sounds filter through: A constant clicking, familiar voices. The smell of antiseptic. I crack open my eyes with some difficulty. Lights blur above me.
Warmth tightens around my hand. “Hey, there.” Philip touches my cheek. He’s here. His face is all banged up and swollen, but he’s safe.
“Well, if it isn’t the hero of the hour.” This male voice is on my other side. I turn my head and an older Philip comes into focus. He’s smiling at me. It’s such a strange expression for him that I almost don’t recognize him.
“Mister Hubert,” I say in a scratchy voice before I remember that name might be a secret.
He seems untroubled by it. “Ingenious plan with that technology of yours. We arrested the Auroras and their cohorts this morning.”
This morning? I must have been unconscious for hours. I try to blink away my sleepiness and take stock of where I am. I seem to be in the very same private hospital room as before. Mister Hubert is sitting by the window, against a bright blue sky.
He sighs, “I owe you an apology, son. I spent years trying to discover the identity of the Aurora family leader. You boys led me right to her, only I was too blinded with self-righteousness to do anything but a cursory background check on her false identity. I should have trusted Philip’s reasoning. He’s always been a smart boy. A smart boy with a big heart. In my attempts to protect him, I nearly got him killed.”
“I’m right here, Father,” Philip says and when I turn my head back to him, I see his mother sitting in a chair on the other side of the drip. The door opens and a bunch of flowers walks in. I blink again as the flowers say, “I thought you all might like some reading materia—oh, he’s awake.”
The flowers are set down beside my bed, completely blocking my view of Mrs. Arrigo, and Emma’s face appears. “Hey, these were at reception for you from someone called Cynthia. Apparently she stopped by, but they said you were at capacity for visitors.”
“Cynthia! I need to pay her back…”
“It’s all been handled,” Philip says.
Emma passes around copies of a newspaper, first to Mrs. Arrigo, then to Mister Hubert and finally to Philip. Mrs. Arrigo flips through the pages rapidly, as if she’s looking for something in particular. “Ah,” she says. “Page three.”
Philip holds the paper across my chest, with some difficulty, and turns to the page. There’s a picture of us at the charity event and, underneath, the headline:
Philip Arrigo saved from kidnappers by dashing boyfriend
Philip reads the story out loud.
It talks about how the Aurora family plotted to hold Philip hostage to manipulate the Arrigos and how I thwarted them. It’s written in a pretty whimsical style. It talks about me going on a brave quest to rescue the man I love and how I received assistance from three fairy godmothers who helped me gather the money to persuade the Auroras not to kill Philip. They’ve got quotes from all three: Emma, Maxine and Cynthia. Maxine plugs The Spindle in her quote, but then there’s a whole paragraph about how the Dragons used The Spindle to observe Philip and plan their crime, right down to the head of the notorious crime family taking a job there as a waitress.
Philip groans and I look at him. “Business is going to boom after this. We’ll need more staff.”
The story continues to talk about how the criminals were captured using my phone as a tracking device. Nowhere does it mention my connection to the Auroras—I’m just the brave boyfriend who took a bullet for his love and is now recovering in hospital.
The article is enlightening in that respect. It tells me I was shot in the shoulder, that I lost a lot of blood and that I had to have surgery to remove the bullet. That must be why I still feel so groggy.
When Philip’s done reading, his Mom says, “You’re going to have to decide who you sell the rights to, dear.”
I realize she’s talking to me. “The rights?” I repeat, dumbly.
She peeks around the flowers. “The magazines, darling. They will be absolutely baying to cover this. One thing better than a mystery suitor is a mystery suitor who is also a knight in shining armor.”
I consider this, then ask, “Are there any that didn’t publish Chase’s lies?”
Mrs. Arrigo answers with a smile.
The door flies open again.
“Sir, I told you—” A nurse is saying, but my Dad ignores her as he rushes to my bedside.
“My boy!” He reaches to hug me, then thinks better of it when he sees the bandages over my shoulder. Philip leaps out of his chair and offers it to my Dad. He slides into it, grabbing my hand at the same time and pressing it to his cheek. “I was so worried.”
“Sorry, Pops.”
The nurse hovers in the doorway making noises about too many visitors until Emma offers to wait outside.
“How did I raise such a brave young man?” Dad says and his eyes are glassy. He touches my spiky hair. “Brave and handsome. I like the hair.”
I can feel my face heating. Mrs. Arrigo clears her throat.
“Um, Pops, this is uh, well these are the Arrigos.” I introduce them one by one. Dad shakes hands with Mr. Hubert, nods politely to Mrs. Arrigo and then, when I get to Philip, he wraps him in a bear hug.
While our parents stand making small talk, Philip slips back to my side.
“How’re you feeling? I mean, beside overwhelmed. This must be pretty overwhelming.”
“Shoulder’s a little sore.”
“Hmm.” His blue eyes sparkle with warmth. “I guess this will mean a few more weeks of me looking after you? That’s if your Dad has no objections?”
Somehow, I don’t think he will.
Epilogue
BRIAN
The sun hits my eyes as I exit the Church of Resurrection on East 101st Street, so I hear the car hooter before I see the baby blue 1959 Cadillac parked right next to the no parking sign.
“Get in, loser, we’re going shopping!” Jones shouts and she waves furiously. As if I could miss her.
Philip, in the passenger seat, covers his face with a hand.
“What?” She asks him as I climb into the back, “I’ve always wanted to say that line.”
He sighs and looks back at me, “How was your meeting?”
“Oh,” Jones says, before I can answer, “shit. I didn’t mean loser like that. It’s a line from a movie.”
“Mean Girls, I know the meme.” I smile at her so she knows I didn’t take offense. I’ve been feeling like less of a loser these last few weeks anyway. I’ve put on a bit of weight living the high life at Arrigo Towers (my pet name for Philip’s home, which he hates). I’ve also started seeing a new therapist in the city. The doctor recommended I do that, not just for my addiction, but because he said a lot of gunshot patients struggle with PTSD. Apparently I’ve been struggling with it since prison, I just didn’t know what it was called. My new therapist was the one who recommended I start going to NA meetings again and that I try to find a sponsor.
“I used to go to meetings, at rehab, but it all felt very… woo,” I said to him then.
He was silent for a long time before asking, “Do you know why the first tag is white, Brian?”
I told him what I told Philip, “You’re surrendering, admitting you need help.”
“Yes, you’re admitting that you are not in control. You don’t have to believe in a higher power, you just need to know that you ain’t it, acknowledge you don’t have the power to do this alone.”
The therapist opened his draw and pulled out a jar of AA chips. “You’re not alone, Brian.”
After attending a few meetings, I’m starting to see what he means. In rehab it was different because we were all kind of living together anyway, so I didn’t see how helpful it could be to know other people who had faced the same struggles as me. Gene was a great therapist in some respects. She helped me deal with my negative thoughts and set goals for myself, but the new guy I’m seeing has made me realize something really important. I’m not responsible for everything in my life. I’m not a god. There are things that will happen that I can’t control and I need to be prepared for that. I need to be willing to accept that sometimes I will fail, sometimes I’ll do wrong and that doesn’t make me wrong, it just means that sometimes I need support and I need to be willing to accept it, like I was willing to accept the phone that not only made my life easier but saved my life.
As Jones weaves through traffic and argues with Philip about the wisdom of having the top down in early December, I think about the some of the other people in my group who aren’t as far in their journey as I am and I imagine how I might be able to help them. Maybe that’s what I want to do with my life, become a therapist or a counselor. You don’t need math to teach people about negative thought spirals and PTSD.
We arrive at the Good Hearts Foundation Festive Ball for Cancer Research as a group in the new suits and dresses we picked up today. I’m wearing white, which means endless teasing from Jones about being a white knight. If that phrase appears in the write ups about this event, I’ll know who to blame. Philip is in an icy blue suit, because I almost jumped him when I saw him in it in the changing room. Yes, he’s wearing something “off the rack” and his parents are going to be scandalized. But I saw the price tag, so I know they have no right to be. Anyway, he looks amazing.
After posing for what feels like a million photos and spending time with Philip’s friends, I finally whisk him off to the dancefloor again. My arm’s still in a sling, but this dance doesn’t seem to have complicated steps. Everyone’s pretty much doing their own thing, like during a slow dance at prom. I rest my head on Philip’s shoulder while the multicolored lights overhead paint my suit in rainbow shades.
I’m enjoying this peaceful moment when I catch sight of someone scowling at me from across the room. Chase. He’s standing alone near the bar, with a drink in his hand, watching us.
“I see Voldemort’s here,” I say.
“Hmm?” Philip glances in his direction, but doesn’t pay him much mind. “Oh, yeah. One of the speakers is a designer so he’s probably hoping to sweet talk her. Listen… um, now we’re alone, I have something to ask you.”
My stomach does a little cartwheel. Things are so perfect and I’m still scared that something might happen to ruin this. “Is it sexy?”
“It could be… I guess?” His smile betrays his own nerves. I’ve gotten to know his facial expressions really well over the last weeks. Philip has been an excellent nurse, in all the practical and the more imaginative ways.
He takes a deep breath, I feel his chest sh
ift. “If… if I moved out of my parents’ place, would you consider staying in the city?”
I look up into his eyes. “My decision to leave never had anything to do with you living with your folks.” Surely he knows that?
“No… it had to do with you not being alone. I guess what I’m saying is, if I changed that, would you stay?”
My feet still of their own accord. I stand in the middle of the dancefloor, my heart fluttering, staring up at him while trying to parse what he means. “Are you…” It seems too much to hope for. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”
He gives a small, shy nod.
“Really? I mean, is that even possible?”
“I’m twenty-eight years old. It’s about time.”
“Your parents…”
“I’ve been thinking about it. The worst they could do is cut off my finances. If they do that, things will be tight. But The Spindle is in my name. I could up my hours and then, when I’m done studying, I’d have a proper salary.”
I’m about to comment on the hours bit and suggest he could just raise his own salary, but then my brain snags on the ‘done studying’. He’s talking long term.
“We could afford to rent somewhere small. Might need to be in Brooklyn or Queens,” he says.
We. A place. Together. “You’re serious?” My heart is a helium balloon floating up, up, up above us.
“Would you…” Philip clears his throat. “I mean, if you don’t want—”
I kiss him, right there in the middle of the snooty charity event with who knows how many conservative old people watching. “I do want. I definitely do want.”
Philip grins at me and I know I’m grinning back, so wide that it hurts.