Nine Minutes in Heaven

by David Connor

  Patrick’s patience with me when it came to making love for the first time was one of the many reasons I cherished what we had.

  “I just…I still maybe have a bit of a problem being vulnerable beneath the full weight of a man. I trust you,” I added quickly. “And I love you.”

  “I love you, and if you don’t want to be under me, maybe you can be on…top of me?” He said it just like that, with the pause and the emphasis on the word top.

  Getting over that hurdle and being with a man who truly wanted me, probably for the very first time in my life, had created a feeling inside I couldn’t put to words, not as it happened, and not as I felt it again in the memory.

  Lying back in his arms afterward, stretched out but still close, our cum and sweat, our hair and our flesh were all smooshed together, as the hands on the clock overhead tick, tick, ticked away time. I decided I had to draw him and climbed the stock ladder we’d played on earlier for a bird’s eye view.

  “I wish I could draw,” Patrick said, lying on his back with his hands under his head. “You look amazing up there.”

  The look of him made me smile. The green eyes, the glasses he’d left on during sex, the big ears their limbs curled around, and the perfect nose they sat on. His naked body reminded me of the statue of Poseidon in Copenhagen Port, all deep sculpted roundness with hard and soft fleshiness and muscle, much of it dusted or covered in orange. “Here.” I ripped off a sheet of paper that floated down to the bed once I’d released it, like one of the snowflakes outside. “Try.”

  “It’s going to suck.”

  “I’m sure I’ll love it. Maybe Jefferson will help. He drew me, remember, when I thought I was drawing him?”

  “I’m going to need all the help I can get.” Patrick reached for the paper. “And a pencil.”

  I tossed him one he caught like a pro.

  “We’re back to Titanic,” he said, “except I see a much happier ending for us. We can swim better than Jack. Oh! There! Your smile.”

  “You make me smile.”

  “That’s the best compliment anyone could give me.”

  Within another twenty minutes, I’d finished my drawing, at least well enough to allow me to get back beside Patrick, where I still yearned to be. I handed it to him.

  “Can I see yours?” Patrick was hiding his artwork face down on his tummy.

  “I worked really hard on this.” He took a deep breath. “Here.”

  He’d drawn a heart with our names inside of it.

  “Perfect.” I clutched it to my chest and put my head against his.

  That had been the origin of tracing our initials over each other’s hearts, and eventually the necklaces, the ones Tom got such joy in destroying.

  In no time, the story of my life arrived at the chapter where I was back to standing in the snowy Cost-Mart parking lot, finally meeting Carrie face to face.

  “Hey.” I rapped on the driver’s side window again. “You’ll freeze. Do you need help?”

  The door opened slightly. “I’ll be fine. Thanks.”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked the person bundled up inside the red hatchback from another decade.

  “Just…um…you know.”

  “You want to come inside? There’s heat in there. You should come inside.”

  “Thank you for showing us Carrie was there,” I said to Jefferson, watching the flashback, as she’d finally agreed to come in and warm up.

  “This is Patrick. He’s my…” After only three steps, I stopped on my way back to the store. I stopped and stood there, even though the wind was howling, and the snow was stinging every bit of exposed skin on my person, especially my cheeks.

  “Your what?” Patrick asked.

  “You’re the man I love. My boyfriend.”

  “Yes!” Patrick leapt into the air with his fist raised, then did a touchdown dance when he landed, his knees flapping, his butt shaking, like Miley twerking at the VMAs back in the day. “That’s the answer I was hoping for.” He offered a kiss I’d been hoping for, one that gave me a chill, and also warmed me up. “Now, let’s get Carrie indoors.”

  “I’m glad she’ll have Shell and Rip to take care of her.”

  I watched the flashback as Carrie told us about her home life and her secret.

  “They just won’t let me be who I am, so I left. I took a chance on you two. What’s the worst thing you could do, throw me back outside in the cold?”

  Sadly, there were lots of worse things people could and have done in similar situations. The way Carrie tensed, it was as if she suddenly remembered that. “I’m sorry you didn’t get what you need at home,” I said. “You’re here now, so sit down…or run around. Take a lap or two around Auto Parts. Do whatever you want.”

  We’d sung together that night. We’d played like children, something neither of us had been able to do much when we’d actually been young.

  I’d been looking forward to knowing Carrie as an adult, of watching her discover who she could be once she could live in her own truth. Anticipating the future was somewhat new to me. My life was just beginning again, but after I saw the flashes of the proposal, Valentine’s Day, that Monday morning putting on necklaces with Patrick, and later being with Shell, Rip, Carrie, and Wilbur, the last thing I saw was Tom.

  “Get on the bike.”

  I didn’t want his words and the fear they brought to be the last thing I experienced on Earth, but it seemed as if that might be my fate. The memories over, my life at its end, I was left with only the crunch of plastic, chrome, and metal, the stench of leaking fuel, grit in my mouth and nose, pain all over, and the taste of blood to fill my senses. I’d survived a deployment to a war zone, yet before and after, for nearly two decades in all, I feared my relationship with Tom would be the death of me. Damn if it wasn’t coming true.

  “I see the light, Jefferson.”

  I saw it, and I heard the cardinal.

  “A-a-ma-z-i-ing grace. Ho-ow sweet the sound.”

  I stood and walked toward the sight and the sound, collapsing again the moment I entered the new place, because I was weak from the crash. “Jefferson?”

  “Yes.”

  An angel made sense.

  Chapter 6

  It was then I saw the meadow, the rainbow, the animals, and my Patrick.

  “The choice to stay or go back is yours right now, Goose.”

  “There’s a limited time to decide, however.” Calvin offered his hand. “The tick of a clock is different here, but back where you came from, recovery is not assured after a finite number of minutes,” he warned.

  “I see. How far into that countdown are we?” I asked.

  “Further than you would want,” Jefferson said.

  “And when that time is up, I’ll be dead-dead forever?”

  “We’re at that crossroad.” Jefferson took my other hand. “Do we stay here, or do we go back where Shelby, Rip, Carrie, and Wilbur are?”

  “What about Patrick?”

  “We need an answer, Goose,” Jefferson said. “We need it now.”

  I awoke with a gasp and a gurgle back out on the street. There was a car pulled over to the side of the road now, its lights not as bright as the one I’d been staring into before. Someone was squatting down beside me.

  “Jefferson?”

  Everything hurt again. It hurt like hell, even breathing, like my lungs were full of the gravel I’d landed in and every single breath had to come past it.

  “Hey. Shh. My name is Lynn. There’s an ambulance on its way.”

  “I was dead.”

  “Shit.”

  “Dead-ish, I guess.” Had I chosen?

  “That ish is important. What’s your name?” Lynn asked.

  “Goose.”

  “Goose?”

  “Like in Top Gun.”

  “Tom Cruise?”

  “No.” I swallowed. “The other guy.”

  “Oh. You’re okay now, Goose. You certainly have your wits about you. Do you kno
w what year it is? They always ask that…”

  “On TV,” I said with Lynn. “It’s the year of the woman.”

  “Umm…I think that was the early nineties,” Lynn said.

  “It’s come around again, just in time.”

  “Good enough.”

  “I need to get to Patrick?”

  “Patrick? Is that the other guy? Patrick…Jeffrey…”

  “Jefferson.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Two.” I smacked my dry lips between words. “Patrick is my fiancé.”

  “Oh.” One word, one syllable, Lynn’s tone sounded pretty bleak. “I checked on him. The EMTs will be here soon.”

  “He was at The Rainbow Bridge, with Max and TJ, and Boy Cat and the others.”

  “Was he?”

  “Yes. It was beautiful there.” The current tableau before me was all dark and gloomy. “I saw Jefferson…”

  “Stay with me.” Lynn gently stroked my forehead.

  “Patrick…Fuck!” I sat up too quickly and said it again, for a different reason. “He’s hurt. Fuck!”

  “Stay down there.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know.”

  “Patrick.”

  “I…I’m sorry. He didn’t make it. You’re going to be okay, though.”

  “I want to be with Patrick…with Calvin and Jefferson.” I laid my head back down and wondered how many of those words I’d said aloud. “I’m going to go now.”

  “Please don’t,” Lynn said. “Come on. You’re going to be okay.”

  Approaching lights and sirens startled me awake or distracted me from my intention to rethink my decision. An ambulance pulled up, and a couple of cop cars. Then, two people rushed to me, before any vehicle even came to a full stop.

  “He’s in and out,” I heard Lynn say.

  “Chest compressions?” one of the EMTs asked.

  “Yes. He was nonresponsive quite a while, but he was just talking. It was under three minutes,” Lynn told him. “Under three minutes, that’s the rule, right?”

  Whose rule I wondered.

  “Hey. What’s your name?”

  The man with his face close to mine had obviously eaten something with garlic for dinner. It wasn’t offensive, but definitely telling.

  “Can you tell me your name?” he asked again.

  “Goose.”

  “Goose?”

  “Ask her,” I said.

  “Like the other guy in Top Gun,” Lynn shared.

  “Gotcha. Hey, Goose. Keep those gorgeous blue eyes open for me now, can you?” the male voice said. “I’m Steve. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Goose? Talk to me, Goose.”

  “It hurts.” The pain was unbearable. I was hurting and angry, because I’d been taken away from Patrick right after crossing over that first time. Someone had brought me back without giving me the choice Jefferson had claimed was mine. I never would have left on my own.

  “Do you have family, Goose?”

  “A sister.” Maybe I had chosen. “And my bro-ham, and Carrie.”

  “They want you to stay with me.”

  “And Wilbur.”

  “Wilbur, too,” Steve said. “We’ll get you fixed up for all of them, okay?”

  “Patrick…”

  “Try to stay still,” I was told. Steve and the other EMT were talking over one another. Sometimes, I didn’t know which one was speaking. “We’re taking you both to the hospital.”

  “Patrick…”

  “Stay calm. You’re going to be okay.”

  “BP is one-oh-five over sixty. Let’s get him on the road, Sheri.”

  “Carrie,” I said.

  “Sheri. She’ll get you there.”

  “We’ve called your sister.”

  “Shelby.”

  “Yes. Good,” Sheri said, as if it was a test.

  “Sheri used your phone,” Steve explained. “Your sister’s going to meet us over there.”

  Someone took my hand, one, and then the other. “Jefferson. You’re back.”

  “I am.”

  “And Calvin, too?”

  “Steve,” he said firmly. “My name is Steve. Can you remember that?”

  “S-t-e-v-e. I can even spell it, unless you go in for some of that weird stuff, like spelling it with an A or putting a silent X in there somehow.”

  “Says the man named Goose.”

  “Touché. Now, tell me how Patrick is.”

  “We’ll find out,” Steve promised.

  Jefferson made a vow as well. “Patrick isn’t in pain.”

  “Good. Were you with him?”

  “He’s not alone,” Jefferson said.

  “Calvin.”

  “Steve.” The guy was persistent.

  I ignored him. “Is Calvin with him?” I asked. “Can Calvin talk to him, now, like you talk to me?”

  “Yes, we can talk to him, too.”

  That made me happy. “Good. Now, he knows you’re real.”

  “I’m not following,” Steve said.

  “Not you, Steve, Jefferson.”

  “You see someone else here with us?” Steve asked me.

  “I see a lot of people—one quite special to me—my motorcycle cowboy, Jefferson.”

  “There’s injury to your head.”

  “He thinks it’s broken,” Jefferson said.

  “I think it is, too,” I admitted. “But I like seeing you.”

  “I like seeing you, too,” Steve said.

  “Not you,” I told him.

  “Never me,” Steve said with a sigh.

  The transfer from street to stretcher went rather well. I gasped, however, when the stretcher jerked upward and locked in its raised position.

  “Sorry about that, Goose.” Steve and Sheri moved me fast enough to create a breeze. “Wait. Jefferson the ghost?” Once Sheri was back in the driver’s seat, Steve fiddled with a bunch of buckles, before hooking me up with an oxygen tube in my nose. “You’re that Goose?” he asked, staring into my allegedly beautiful blue eyes.

  “How many Gooses does the average person know?” I had to ask.

  “Wouldn’t that be Geese?” Jefferson’s radiant smile made me forget my pain a moment, that from my injuries, and also from not knowing what had happened to Patrick after I’d left him at The Rainbow Bridge.

  “We should ask him both questions,” I said.

  “I just now remembered the whole news story about the diary and the tree. Jefferson’s here now?” With Steve’s hand on me, I could feel him shiver.

  When I said, “Yes,” he did it again.

  “Cool. You need all the love and support you can get.”

  “Goose?”

  “Patrick?” I closed my eyes, knowing it would be easier to see him that way. “It’s Patrick.”

  “Goose?”

  “Goose!”

  I definitely heard him calling to me through all the noise, through Steve shouting my name, too. “Jefferson, it’s Patrick.” I squeezed Jefferson’s hand, which had never left mine.

  “He’s looking for you,” Jefferson said. “He can feel you back there.”

  “Will it always be that way?”

  “No,” Jefferson said. “You’re unsettled.”

  “He’ll forget me if I stay here?”

  “Who could forget you?” Steve asked. The guy was a flirt.

  “No. Never,” Jefferson claimed. “Calvin told me so. The pain of loss is somehow held at bay by only wonderful memories and the promise of reuniting someday.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Thanks.” Once again, Steve thought I was talking to him. “I bet it’s true.”

  “You bet?” Talk about backtracking. Steve sucked at flirting.

  “It is nice,” Jefferson said. “And Calvin only speaks in truth.”

  “I see the light again.”

  “Fuck!” That came from Steve.

  “It’s
okay, Steve. Patrick is there.”

  “Hang in here, Goose. How about that? Stay with me.”

  “I want Patrick.”

  “Never me,” Steve said again.

  “Someday, Steve.”

  “Fuck. Floor it, Sheri! We’re losing him.”

  Those were the last words I heard from Steve. Then, I heard Patrick loud and clear.

  “Hey, Love Camel. There you are.” He turned to face me, as I found myself standing behind him on the deck of a large, fancy boat. “I’ve been waiting.” His ginger curls were highlighted in what was left of the daylight and tousled by a somewhat muggy breeze. As we ever so slightly rocked on the large lake, I noticed right way how his nose and cheeks were reddened by the sun, now about to set. He’d been there a while.

  “Patrick!” I rushed to him, my open shirt fluttering in the wind I made, the golden letter P at my chest bouncing with each step.

  “Happy honeymoon,” he said, catching me in his open arms, where I pressed myself to his bare skin and the silvery G where his heart beat.

  “I feel it,” I said.

  His warmth felt familiar and comforting, safe and erotic.

  “I sensed you there, Goose. I knew before you even spoke a word.”

  “Where else would I be?” I said those words after a deep, long kiss. Then, upon looking at our scenic vista for the first time, really, at anything but Patrick, I added, “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.”

  The scenery around us was lush and beautiful, the lake crystal blue, calm and serene. One bank just behind our stern, the other a fair distance away, and the mountains far off were all resplendent, green, and noisy, with happy sounds of nature. There was a pink hue over it all, and delight was but one of my emotions.

  “The evening is beautiful, and so’s your face.” It fit in Patrick’s large hand as he covered me forehead to chin. That was my Patrick, that was our relationship, following a mushy compliment with a gentle face palm, a loving squeeze, and then another kiss.

  “This can’t be our honeymoon, though,” I said, looking back to his eyes, as green as the foliage in front of us. “We’re not married yet.” I showed him my ring finger, with just the one band, the engagement ring he had made me out of multicolored paperclips. “White for winter, yellow for spring, green for summer, and orange for fall,” I reminded him, “when it all began.”