The giggling felt good, too. Felt very good, in fact. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed.
To my surprise, Rachel squealed for no apparent reason and threw herself onto my lap. Oompf! But she actually didn’t feel very heavy at all, for some reason, considering the force she used to propel herself there. Probably the combined effect of drinking and smoking. I was off in another plane. She took the joint from my fingers, passed it to Brendan, who was now sitting on my other side, I noticed. Amy then proceeded to throw her arms around my neck and hugged me. It was all becoming rather surreal. Almost abstract, Dali-ish.
Rachel softly kissed my cheek. I looked at her in surprise. “What’s that for?”
“’Cause I love you, silly!”
My cheeks burned warmly, blushing git that I was. I buried my face in her shoulder, then peeked up at her playfully. And giggled again.
Damn, I’m a cheap date.
Didn’t take much of that Mary Jane to get me high. And before you mention again that I drink too much, I know it. Between the four of us, we smoked two joints, and decent grade pot it was, maybe not sensamilla, but not homegrown either, and we killed off that bottle of wine, so altogether we were feeling no pain. The Byrds gave way to the Doors. Jim Morrison belting out “L.A. Woman”—very nice, very nice, indeed.
I have to admit that I was feeling pretty damn mellow for a change. Maybe the pot hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
I let myself get carried away with the timber of Jim Morrison’s voice and his mojo rising. He was a good-looking guy after all, nice body. Especially the way he filled out those tight leather pants.
I sat on the sofa alone now. Rachel and Amy were in the kitchen with Brendan. I think they were making Rice Krispies treats or something. Munchies, you know. The inevitable result of smoking pot. As inevitable as death and taxes. But they sure sounded good. I suggested to them that they should add some chocolate. And some peanut butter. Can’t ever have too much of a good thing, after all. I let the music flow through me, the vibrations soaring through my limbs; I was soaring myself now, higher, higher, rocking back and forth to the rhythms of the Doors. It’s the mojo rising, baby, Mr. Mojo rising… rising, rising….
I was pulled out of my deep philosophical reverie by Rachel’s voice in my ear. “C’mon, Max, we’re playing Twister!”
Twister? What the hell? My eyes snapped open. She was kidding, right?’
No, she wasn’t. Indeed there was the colorful Milton Bradley box that I remembered from my boyhood sitting on the floor, the spinner beside it, polka-dot mat unfurled, and it seemed that they had every actual intention of playing the game. With me, I noticed. I tried to shake my head in a negatory fashion, but it was too fuzzy to move properly. I had to laugh at myself.
So we played Twister. Right foot blue, left hand green, I’m sure you all know the drill. Spinning and moving and laughing, trying to contort ourselves into configurations that were patently impossible and positions that were not intended for the human skeleton to shape itself to and collapsing on top of one another with pretend cries of, “Hey, you’re heavy, get off!”, “Quit touching my ass!”, and assorted rude gibes. We fell all over one another and into one another and laughed about it uproariously. Everyone on top of everyone else. Amy seemed to land on me a great deal, but I didn’t take note of it at the time.
The next thing I knew, though, the Jack Daniels, the wine, and the pot, as well as the rough-and-tumble game, caught up with me all at one time, and I stood, swaying like a limp noodle in a gentle breeze, excused myself, and headed toward the bathroom with all possible speed. I proceeded to fall to my knees there and worship the porcelain god. A couple of times. Damn, my stomach was churning like a cowboy on a bucking bronco. I slid back against the wall, my head on my knees, and waited for this feeling to pass before I dared to stand up again. Walked on my knees to the sink, took some water into my mouth from the tap, swished it around, and spit it back out to lose the horrible taste of vomit. Cursed Richard’s name, blaming him for my drinking like a damn guppy.
When I felt I could trust myself to walk again, I rose, gingerly, and opened the bathroom door, swallowing hard to keep from having a repeat of the incident. There, in the hallway, Brendan was waiting for me, a sympathetic Good Samaritan. “Hey, you okay?” he asked.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.
“C’mon, I think you should lie down. You can use my bed,” he offered, taking my hand. I made no objection as he led me across the hall and into his bedroom. I was still fighting the nausea that threatened to engulf me at any moment, too ill to wonder about or infer anything. At that moment, all I wanted to do was make the world stand still.
I lay down on his bed, keeping one foot on the floor, something I remembered had helped me before, but I wasn’t sure of the reasoning behind it. Perhaps it kept me grounded? I don’t know. I think I passed out almost immediately thereafter. Dead to the world and oblivious to everything around me.
I think I remember opening my eyes a couple of times after that; I could see a faint trace of moonlight coming into the room from the window, the sound of voices floating to me down the hallway, muffled snippets of conversation. Maybe music too. Or maybe I imagined the whole thing.
And then I began to dream. About what else, but Richard? Who couldn’t have guessed that?
We were swimming in a lovely blue lagoon, both of us naked, alone in the most beautiful waters I had ever seen. Crystal clear, crystal blue, heartbreakingly blue, while tiny golden fish swam in schools between our legs, making us laugh as we tried not to step on them. We raced each other around and around the lagoon, like two playful dolphins. Carefree and gay. Our lighthearted laughter echoed around us, whether we were splashing at one another, or swimming side by side, or locking lips as we tread water together. It was perfect, it was idyllic, and it was happiness wearing Richard’s form.
I clung to him like his own personal barnacle, determined to hold fast to him. “Tell me how much you love me,” my needy self insisted, nay, demanded.
“I love you like the air that I breathe,” my angelic darling proclaimed, “like the food that I eat. You are my everything.”
His words were balm to my open wounds, soothing and healing. I poured myself around him, dove into him, swam in him, lost myself in the wonder that was Richard Burke. My heart relaxed as I welcomed him back into it, and his lips on mine were the only things that I could feel now. He was the only thing that I was aware of…
…until I woke once more, in Brendan’s bedroom. Same pale light streaming in through the window. But whose lips were fastened upon mine? Surfer-blond tresses reflected the moonlight, and my heart beat so fast that I thought I was having some sort of heart attack. I kissed those lips most eagerly, wound my arms around that familiar body, whimpered like a little puppy. He was here, he was here, he was here!, my heart sang.
But something didn’t feel right, something didn’t taste right, and as the body slid up against mine I felt something I knew I shouldn’t feel on my lover: breasts. Not breasts that size, anyway. That mouth on mine was very insistent, though, and kept on kissing me even as I tried to pull back and figure out what the hell was going on. My head was aching, a dull persistent throbbing like a conga line was passing through it, and my mouth felt, even aside from being strangely kissed, like it had been used as a feline bathroom.
And then I heard that voice, and it definitely wasn’t Richard’s voice, whispering my name. “Maxie, Maxie….”
Good God. I opened my eyes completely, pushed that body far enough away to allow the moonlight to shine on… her face? Amy? What the fuck?
Amy, not Richard. Dammit all to hell anyway. I scrambled back off the bed so fast that I slid onto the floor, sat there for a moment wondering “what now,” then as I began to wake up a little more, I knew exactly “what now,” and I raced for the bathroom before I had an accident right there on Brendan’s floor, barely making it in time to be sick into the toilet aga
in. I sat there for a long time afterward, until I heard her footsteps, her voice at the door, asking if I was all right. I didn’t answer. I think I passed out again at some point, ’cause that’s where I woke up later, stiff and cramped, and rather cranky.
YES, that was the memory that came flooding back when I kissed Rachel, which was an altogether entirely different set of circumstances. Well, kissing Amy was nothing I had done or encouraged. But it was just further proof to me of her strange obsession with me, even then. I mean, why me? Why me? I don’t get it.
I release Rachel, pull back from her embrace, and Richard helps me to my feet. I look at my longtime friend: she sits there, looking up at me with a contented smile upon her face, a whimsical look, almost. Richard puts his arm around me, pulls me into his embrace and kisses me softly. “C’mon, loverboy, let’s go home,” he whispers. “I think you two are fine now.”
I nod, looking back at Rachel one more time. “Go on, Max,” she urges me, “we’re good.” She nods her own good-bye.
I blow her a kiss, before I lean in to my love, nestling close to him as we walk together out of Rachel’s office. “Yes, love, let’s go home.”
Loving Richard to the max and setting a course for the future, full speed ahead.
Chapter 10
Players, That’s All We Are, Is Players
SEEING Juliet’s name on my caller ID sometimes gives me pause. Not that I don’t love my mother very much, ’cause I do. Never doubt that. It’s just that I never know when she is calling to spring something—or someone—on me. Even now, even having lived with Richard all these years, she still sets me up on damned blind dates. For Christ’s sake, Mother! When will this stop? When I’m drawing Social Security? When I’m in some home for old geezers, being chased around in my motorized wheelchair by little old blue-haired ladies whispering, “Juliet sent me”? I shudder at the thought.
And please don’t think that she’s homophobic, ’cause she’s not. She has no problem with the lifestyle as a whole, just with my participation in it. It’s not good enough for her Max or something. I don’t know. I can’t really explain it; I just have to live with it. It doesn’t even disturb Richard. He takes it in good stride, which is amazing to me. I know I would go ballistic if his mother did to him what mine does to me.
Richard’s mother. We’ll set that subject aside for now, if you don’t mind.
Then again, why? I can handle it. What was it Shakespeare once said? If ’twere done, ’twere best done quickly?
Saturday, April 9, 1977
IT WAS April of ’77, Richard had been gone for about two months. Life went on. It always did. I was sitting in my room, idly thumbing through a course catalog for the following fall semester. Rachel had half-talked me into going back to school. I knew that I had to do something, something other than sit around and mope for the rest of my life. Or deliver pizzas (I told you the bagging job wouldn’t last. The wolf refused to go back after the full moon, and they fired me). I was debating taking a class on North American archaeology, as they weren’t offering anything on Greece that semester, when Diana appeared in my doorway. She was going through some weird kind of Hollywood starlet phase at the time, which entailed her wearing sunglasses inside the house. And a chiffon head scarf.
“Max, there’s a lady downstairs wants to see you,” she said.
I glanced up at her. “A lady? What lady?”
“I dunno, some lady.” She shrugged unhelpfully. “Asked me if Max was home.”
“So you told her ‘yes’?”
“Sure. You’re home, aren’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. My sister giggled before reverting to her mysterious star status and dashing off to evade the paparazzi, or whatever else she might have been doing, leaving me to deal with the woman downstairs. Good Lord. I knew it was unlikely that I had an actual visitor, so that narrowed it down to another one of my mother’s surprise blind dates. It was not unusual for her to send strange young women to the house for just that purpose, even at times when my boyfriend was there. Which tended to be a bit awkward, especially if he wandered downstairs while I was attempting to make polite conversation, ’cause he invariably did something to stake his claim on me, whether it was simply kissing me or throwing himself into my lap. The end result was the same: the knowing look, the hasty farewell, leaving the two of us to collapse together in helpless laughter while Juliet would walk in and shake her head at us, saying, “You’ve not scared off another one, have you, Max?” which only made us laugh even more.
Okay, let’s get this over with, I decided, not even bothering to put on shoes, shooting a hasty glance in the mirror and running a hand through my tousled hair. Oh well, I wasn’t going anywhere, and this was my home, so why shouldn’t I be comfortable?
I padded downstairs. Diana had apparently shown the visitor into the living room. That was a misnomer, as we did most of our living in the family room. This was just a room we used to get into the rest of the house, but at times it served a useful purpose. Like now.
She was sitting in one of the upholstered green chairs leftover from my grandmother’s time. Honking big flowered things they were, but my grandfather would never allow them to be changed. Sentimental reasons, I supposed. Not uncomfortable, actually. At least they weren’t covered in plastic like I knew some people’s were. Now that was damned annoying, to find oneself being treated like an untrained puppy that couldn’t be trusted not to piddle on the furniture. I saw at a glance that this visitor/blind date/whatever was a grown woman, not a girl at all, and I wondered to myself what Juliet was thinking now.
She rose as I entered the room, greeted me with a warm smile that lit her entire face. She was a pretty woman, I had to admit. Looked like she might be in her thirties, but I wasn’t really good at guessing ages, particularly women’s. Wore a flowing, flower print dress á la Haight-Ashbury with a matching hat. Little or no makeup. Something about her seemed very familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place her face. “You must be Max,” she said. “I’d know you anywhere, I think.” Huh?
“From the pictures Richard’s sent me,” she went on to explain. Which only confused me more. Richard? What had he to do with this? Surely my absent lover wasn’t setting me up on dates now, was he? That made no sense. She began to laugh at my confusion, a warm rich sound that seemed most sincere. And when she smiled, she looked like… Richard?
“I guess I should start by introducing myself. I don’t think my son has done that yet, has he? I’m Moonsong. Simply Moonsong, no last name.” She held one hand out to me; I took it automatically, even as I went into a mild state of shock. His mother? What the fuck?
“Richard’s not here,” I mumbled, swallowing hard, trying to keep my cool.
“No?” I think that caught her off-guard; her forehead puckered as if in thought, and I could see a strong resemblance between mother and son in the shape of the eyes, that same dark blue velvet shade, but her hair was a rich russet, not blonde. Same high cheekbones, too, and well-shaped lips. Damn, I missed him. “I guess Angelo was right,” she said, half-chuckling. “I’ll never hear the end of this one.”
Angelo? “Is that his dad?” I heard myself asking in spite of myself, more than a little curious. Richard never talked about his father. Come to think of it, Richard had never mentioned either parent to me before.
“Angelo? Hell no, I’ve only been with him a couple of years. Richard’s dad was just a loser I picked up and lost a long time ago.” She laughed, pulling a cigarette out of her denim-clothed shoulder bag, lighting it, and taking a quick drag. “So where is my wandering boy?” she asked, watching me I thought rather curiously.
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly, not wishing to get caught up in a discussion about it at all.
“I haven’t heard from him since Christmas, last time I came through this way. When I brought him his sandals.” She took another drag from her cigarette, let the smoke out slowly, as if she were thinking about Richard. Or Christmas. Or sandals.
“Yeah, those ones. Angelo and I were visiting Richard’s grandmother, so we stopped by. (Grandmother? He has a grandmother too?) I think we missed you that day; he said you weren’t feeling very well. (Full moon maybe?) I’m glad to finally get to meet my son’s boyfriend.” Her smile was friendly, and she said “boyfriend” as if it were natural, unlike my mother who preferred the appellation “friend” but usually gave it perverted undertones.
I felt the pain of Richard’s desertion shoot through me all over again, as if it had just happened, like sticking a knife into a wound you thought had healed: it still hurts, if you twist it the right way. “Not anymore,” I mumbled, looking down at my feet, biting at my lip to keep from crying in front of her.
“Don’t worry about it, sugar! My boy’s like a bad penny. He always turns up sooner or later!” she tried to reassure me. Before I could even think what to say in reply to that, I heard a car horn blasting from outside; it sounded like it was in my driveway. I turned my head toward the sound.
“That’s just Angelo,” she explained, laughing. “He must be getting impatient.” She made a move toward the door as if she intended to leave.
I hated myself for doing it, and I swore I wouldn’t do it, but I did it anyway, feeling like a complete and utter ass even as the words left my lips. “Um… Moonsong… do you have any idea where he might be?” God, that sounded pathetic. Incredibly pathetic. I should have been ashamed of myself for asking. I couldn’t even look at her when I said it.
To the Max Page 14
