Ziggy, Stardust and Me

by James Brandon

  “Wait—how’s your summer been?” he asks.

  “Oh. Uh. Okay . . . ?”

  “Damn, you’re like my height now. Weird,” he says, still fidgeting.

  “Yeah.”

  “You sound different. And you look different, too. Kinda crazy. I don’t know.” He laughs.

  “Oh. Right.” I start to brush my hair down, then stop myself and look at him. “I am . . . I am different.”

  “Cool . . .” Something’s changed. I can’t explain it. Like I can see a few cracks in the muscle marble, a few chips in his perfect veneer. And his eyes aren’t filled with toothpick-creature-beating rage. No, they’re different, too. Sad. Maybe they always have been.

  “I should go—”

  “Hey. You know . . . all those assholes are still at camp . . .” He shuffles his Pumas on the linoleum. “It’s stupid, I know, but I thought maybe, I don’t know, if you want to hang—”

  “You shouldn’t hide,” I say.

  “What?”

  I look in his eyes and see him: the lonely boy I once was, floating through a silent space. “I said I am different, Scotty. I’m happy.”

  He doesn’t move. Then his face slowly lifts to a smile, a tug-of-war smile. I know that look.

  “Actually,” I say, “I don’t think I’m gonna be around for the rest of the summer. I’ll see you in school.”

  “Okay, yeah . . .” He turns back to the pool table, and I walk past.

  I can’t be sure, but I think I just grew a few more inches.

  Oh, I like this new me a lot.

  58.

  IT’S 10:37. DAD’S CADILLAC glints in the driveway under the moonlight. My stomach lurches with Stingraymobile. Come on, girl, we got this. There’s one thing left to do now.

  As we pedal closer, I hear our phone ringing.

  And ringing. And ringing.

  I wait in the shadows for him to answer it, so I can shoot up the stairs and— No. No more hiding. You have to face him. No time like the present.

  Rrrrinnnnggg . . . Rrrriiinnnngggg . . . Silence.

  I park her on the porch and peek my head through the screen door.

  Couch is empty. TV’s still on: This Week in Watergate. I go inside and switch it off.

  “Dad?” No answer.

  RRRINNNGGGGG. JESUS.

  I yell up the stairs, “Dad?” Still no answer. “Dad. It’s me. Look. I’m sorry for what I said. I was angry and—” I creep to my room, eyes skipping in every direction. “Dad?” Where I’d left him, cowering and coughing in a ball, he’s no longer there. The confetti of dead Ziggys still blankets the floor. “Dad, come on, quit playing games, I said I was sorry . . .” Nothing. I tiptoe down the hallway, switch on his bedroom light. Peek in. No sign of him. No life anywhere.

  The phone still rings.

  I bound downstairs. Two of the dining room chairs are flipped over. Huh. Hadn’t noticed that walking in.

  I pick up the receiver. “Hey, Chester, is Dad there?”

  “How you are a spawn of that man, I shall never know.”

  “Starla?”

  “Jonny-boo!”

  “Oh man, Starla, I can’t believe—”

  “Lord, this connection is awful, I can barely hear—”

  “It’s so crackly—where are you?”

  “D.C. Don’t tell me you forgot—”

  “No, I mean, I just hoped maybe—”

  “I’ve been trying to call for ages but your line’s been busy all night and—”

  “Man, I miss you. There’s so much—”

  “—so much to tell you.”

  She laughs. I slink down the wall. “You first,” I say.

  “Oh, I don’t even know where to begin. And I can’t talk long or Daddy’ll kill me—long distance, you know—but anyway, I just love it here, Jonny, absolutely LOVE it here. You would, too. It’s glorious. So many people like us, you know: Different. Revolutionaries— Hey, maybe you can come here. Stay with us for a bit?”

  “Wow. Yeah. That would be amazing, actually—”

  “Because . . . I don’t know. Momma was offered this job teaching at a university here, and . . . she might take it, so . . .”

  “You mean like . . . permanently?”

  “Maybe. Yeah. I don’t know . . .”

  “Whoa. Wow. That’s so . . . I’m . . . just . . . so . . .” Gone. I start crying into the receiver.

  “Jonathan? What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing . . . sorry . . . nothing . . . just hearing your voice . . . I’m so happy for you and—” I cradle the phone against my ear, like I’m cradling her in my arms. “So much has happened and there’s something I need to tell you but I don’t know how and it’s crazy I know but it’s the Ziggy Truth and I’m just—”

  “Shhh . . . you can tell me anything, you know that . . . just talk louder and slower because you seriously sound like you’re in hyperdrive.”

  I wipe my eyes and take a breath. “Okay . . . Oh, hey, I got the postcards, you know, and that picture of Eric.”

  “Right—”

  “I’m happy for you, Starla . . .”

  “Yeah. I’m happy, too, Jonathan . . .”

  “Good . . . good . . .”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I don’t know. I guess, because, I am, too, you know . . . Happy, I mean. I met someone who—”

  “Really? That’s . . . wonderful! Who is she?”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “I mean . . . I don’t know . . . it’s . . . not a she—”

  Static crinkles through the receiver.

  “Jonathan? Hello?”

  “I said the someone who makes me smile is not a she. It’s a—”

  “Jonathan?”

  “He.”

  “What?”

  “IT’S A HE, IT’S WEB.”

  The galaxy goes silent.

  Then, another voice pops through the static: “DeeDee, get off that phone right now and get back to bed!” It’s her dad.

  “Just a sec!” she yells back.

  “You hear what I said?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh. Okay . . .”

  More silence. She’s either praying or scheming her way off the phone. “Never mind, forget it, I’ll let you go—”

  “Jonny, how could you let me go on like that? I’ve been waiting for you to tell me since last year when we— Oh, I’m so frigging happy for you I could crawl through the receiver and hug you so hard you’d burst—” Her voice wobbles with the static. She’s crying now.

  “I wondered . . . if you knew—”

  “What do you think I’ve been praying for all this time?”—“DEEDEE, NOW!”—“Ugh. Hold on. Just one more second, I promise! Fool still won’t call me Starla . . . Jonathan?”

  “You have to go.”

  “I’m sorry, we’re taking the train to New York in the morning, and we have to—I didn’t expect you to tell me all this and—you have more to tell me, don’t you?”

  “It’s just . . . No. It’s okay, Starla. Really.”

  “Listen, I’ll call again. Soon. I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now I’m absolutely convinced you need to come here . . . Oh, Jonny, I wish I were there so I could . . . I don’t even know what . . . Lord, what a summer, right?”

  “Yeah, what a summer . . .”

  “. . . So, so happy—” She blows her nose and starts laughing. “And you lucky boy, he’s a damn fox!”

  “Oh man . . . Yeah . . .” I push back more tears. I only hope I get to see him again . . .

  “I told you to keep prayin’ to Ziggy on the Cross—”

  We laugh. Sort of.

  “So. To be continued . . . ?”


  “Yeah . . . To be continued . . .”

  I hang up. And just as I do, a memory flashes through my mind: When Starla snuck me downtown to the Ziggy concert last year, we met this orange-sparkled-hair boy who blew glitter in our faces and he said we were so bright we were stars to make wishes on. So we did. We wished. Starla said we probably wished for the same thing. Maybe we did . . . I wished for this: to tell her who I really am.

  The phone rings again.

  I dry my face with my shirt. “Couldn’t get enough of me, could you? I was just thinking about—”

  “Oh! Oh, hello?” It’s another woman’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  “I didn’t expect—we’ve been trying to call all night.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Sorry. Sorry. Is this Jonathan Collins?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And is your father Robert Collins?”

  “Yeah. Who is this?”

  “Sorry. I’m new. I just started yesterday and—sorry! My name’s Stacey Adkins. I’m a nurse at St. Louis Mercy Medical Center. Your father’s here. He was admitted tonight—”

  “What? Why? What happened? Is he okay?”

  “I’m not supposed to . . . is there a way you can come down to the hospital?”

  “I guess?”

  “That would be recommended. Oh, are you old enough to drive? I don’t know, maybe we can send someone.”

  “No, I can drive. I’ll be right there.”

  59.

  HE LIES IN BED asleep, hooked up to ticking machines and tentacled with plastic tubes. The small fluorescent light buzzing over his bed makes his already ashen face more ghostly.

  “Jonathan?” A man taps my shoulder. I jump.

  “Sorry,” he says. “I’m Dr. Tennant.” His eyes glow a cheerful green even this late at night.

  “What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?”

  “We’re not sure exactly yet. He's resting, but we need to keep him here to do some tests. He had a lot of fluid in his lungs, and was in quite a bit of pain. We gave him some codeine, so that should help for now.”

  “Oh. Okay . . .”

  “He asked us to call you after he couldn’t reach you, and to get in touch with your—” He flips through pages on his clipboard. “Dr. Evelyn Smith?” I nod. “She should be here soon. She’s going to help you. Do you have a change of clothes in there?”

  “What?”

  “In your satchel.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Do you want us to take you home, or—”

  “I’m going to stay,” I say. “I’ll stay here with him.”

  “Jonathan?” We look up to see Dr. Evelyn jogging down the hall. Her hair’s tousled, pulled back with her blue-tinted glasses, and her face is pinched into that overprotective-mom look again. “Jonathan. It’s so good to see you. I’m glad you’re alright.” She hugs me. “You are alright, aren’t you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Dr. Tennant clutches the clipboard to his chest. “You must be—”

  “Sorry. I’m Dr. Evelyn.” She shakes his hand. “Mind if I have a moment with Jonathan? I’ll come find you after.”

  “Of course.” He pats my shoulder. “You’re going to be just fine. And we'll take good care of your dad. Okay?”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Dr. Evelyn squeezes my hand, leading me down the hall. We find an empty row of orange plastic chairs next to a vending machine, and sit.

  We don’t speak. There’s so much I want to say to her right now, but the words are trapped. She brushes the hair off my face, examining me. I never noticed the color of her eyes before: They’re violet. Or maybe it’s the dark circles charcoaled under them making them glow. She lifts a smile, revealing that great, wide gap between her teeth.

  “Jonathan . . .” She pats my hands. “Jonathan, I know you want to get back to your dad, but I’m glad I caught you before—I’ve much to tell you. Goodness, I don’t even know where to begin, I—”

  “I’m not sick,” I say.

  She stops massaging my hands.

  “I don’t need to be fixed. I never did. And I’m not doing those treatments ever again.” The words fall out of my mouth, along with the tears from my eyes.

  “I know,” she says softly. “And I’m sorry . . . I was wrong . . .”

  I flick my hands out from under hers. “What?”

  “I was wrong.” She looks up at the ceiling, shaking her head like she’s talking to herself. “I was only doing what I was trained to do, what we were taught in school. But I knew something wasn’t—I should’ve trusted my—” She grabs a tissue from her trench coat pocket, blows her nose, and clears her throat. She untangles the glasses from her hair and puts them on. Back to Analytical Doctor.

  “You know I went to that psychiatry conference in Hawaii, right?” I nod. “Well . . . there was a lot of . . . commotion this time. People from the Gay Liberation Front stormed in, demanding to be heard, including one of our own doctors, and . . . well, the things they said, Jonathan, sharing their sincerity and passion and pain . . . it changed me. There’s been so much research done lately rebutting everything we were taught in school about . . . homosexuality . . . and whether or not it can be cured and, well . . .” She’s shredding the tissue in her hands, not looking at me as Analytical Doctor, no, more like Five-Year-Old Lost Schoolgirl. “I was wrong. And I’m sorry. The treatments—I hated giving them to you, but I thought that’s what was best for your—what you wanted, I mean—what I was taught to do—but they won’t work. Not ever. Because you’re right, Jonathan. You’re not sick. You never were . . .” She dabs her cheeks with her tissue, wipes underneath her glasses, still crying. “And I’m sorry I—”

  “But . . . you . . .”

  “I should’ve said something earlier, but I didn’t.”

  “You . . . made me think I was . . .”

  “And I will always live with that regret—”

  I spring up. “You were making me feel crazy this whole time.”

  “I’m so sorry—”

  “But I knew. I knew you were wrong and—” I pace the hall. So fast, I feel like I may actually fly right through the ceiling tiles. “You and Dad convinced me I was sick, that I’d be broken for the rest of my life, but I knew I wasn’t and—”

  “You have every right to be angry, Jonathan—”

  “I’m not—I don’t know what to feel, but I’m not angry, I’m . . . I’m . . . I don’t even know—it’s weird to hear something said back to you that you’ve always known—especially from you, but—it’s also . . . I don’t know . . . it’s not a surprise, it’s—like everything just clicked and—I have to go. I need to talk to Dad. I need to be with him now.” I start walking away.

  “Of course you do. We can talk more—”

  I turn back. She’s curled up, holding herself. Oh, I know that feeling. “No, Dr. Evelyn. There’s nothing more to say.” And I leave her, to finally tell Dad the truth.

  * * *

  —

  Beeps and whooshes and Dad’s scratchy inhales swim through his room. The light buzzes over his head. It smells like dried puke and piss covered up with bleach. He sleeps, so I curl up on the recliner and watch him lying there, more peaceful than I’ve seen him my entire life.

  Maybe he’s finally found it . . .

  Like me.

  60.

  Sunday, July 15, 1973

  LIKE DAD, I’VE COME in and out of consciousness the past two days.

  More tired than I thought, I guess.

  I shot up from my own dreamless state when he screamed, from pain or nightmares or both. His eyes fluttered, his mouth twitched. So ashen-gray and slick he looked like a phantom. Nurses flew in, fiddled with this box and that tube, cleaned up pools of sweat and sick. Then he was lost agai
n in Codeineland.

  When I wake this morning, it is silent. The light outside sears my retinas. So sharp and bright, I can’t see clouds or trees or hills or any semblance of life: The world is one big blank white canvas. Guess the nurses threw the curtains open—

  “Hey, bud.”

  “JESUS.”

  “Sorry.”

  He’s sitting up, hands folded in his lap, smiling—for real smiling—like he’s been waiting up for hours. Some color’s come back to his face, but his eyes are blackened and sunken in.

  “Hey,” I say. “You’re awake.”

  “Yeah, didn’t want to wake you. I liked watching you sleep. You looked so peaceful.”

  “Oh.” Great, he’s been visited by the Three Ghosts. Not sure I’m ready for this.

  “Man, your voice,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.”

  “I know.”

  “Huh . . .”

  I’m not sure what to do. I’m not sure what exactly is going on. He hasn’t looked at me this way since the moon landing. He turns to the window and shakes his head. I don’t move.

  “Pour me a cup of ice, willya, son?”

  “Sure. You want some water? I could get—”

  “No, I only like the shaved ice.”

  “Oh.” I grab a Styrofoam cup from the sink, scoop out little shards of ice from the plastic jug. I scoot the recliner over and sit next to him.

  “My mouth’s so damned dry,” he says, crunching ice bits in his mouth.

  We sit in silence.

  “Nurses said you’ve been here ever since,” he says after a while.

  “Yeah.”

  “Thanks.”

  I mumble a youknowwhatever and shuffle my Chucks on the tiles. Whoa, first time I’ve really noticed them. Holy scuffed to hell.

  More silence.

  A rumble of ice hitting Styrofoam.

  A sq-squeak from my Chucks.

  “You in pain?” I ask, still looking down.

  “No, I’m feeling better. Still got this damn cough, but better . . .”

  I nod.

  “Been walkin’ around with pneumonia for weeks, I guess. You believe that? Then I got that fever thing and—damn near died. Thought I was a goner, bud.”