Boy

by James Stryker

  And Luke had never been in a situation like that.

  He swallowed and tried to focus on the music pouring from the piano rather than what had happened. But music was the only thing that had prevented him from turning away from the condo door in the first place.

  If you hadn’t been playing the piano, I’d be in Pennsylvania. Or New York. Luke watched Tom, who hadn’t yet ceased playing and didn’t appear likely to stop any time soon. And if I were in Pennsylvania or New York—if I’d been anywhere else last night—what would’ve happened to you?

  ✩✩✩

  Luke knew something was wrong with Tom before the incident. From him even initially opening the door, it was obvious. The hostility contradicted their other interactions, even when Tom had been angry at the end of their breakfast engagement. The shaking, the twisted look that kept coming into his eyes, the way he grasped the sink as if it were a crutch? Tom was sick. He was in pain. And he was trying to hide it.

  Everyone is always trying to hide things from me, Luke had bitterly thought when Tom staggered down the hallway to his kitchen.

  The bitter conclusion that once again he was being deceived made him decide that, while Tom was pushing sensitive buttons to frustrate him enough to leave, Luke wasn’t going anywhere. Not until his questions were answered. If Tom threw him out, he’d pitch a tent in the hallway.

  His resolution only faltered slightly when Tom said he was dying.

  For being raised around so much death, you’d think I’d know what to say. Should I ask what’s killing him? Volunteer to help? Say I’m sorry? Am I sorry? He didn’t know the man. Would he be sorry if Tom dropped dead before he got the answers he wanted? Yes. But after he ceased to be of any use?

  I’m a dick, Luke thought. You’re not just a tool that can be disposed of once its purpose is fulfilled—a wet wipe or a fucking plastic spoon.

  Still, dick or not it wouldn’t be fair if Tom died prior to answering what he needed. And even if no one else believed in the concept of fairness, Luke did. He was owed the information he came for, and he was determined that Tom would deliver it, no matter how sick he was.

  Luke stood in the kitchen for several minutes after Tom gave his reluctant invitation to stay before stumbling out. He’d heard a door at the end of the hall close but no other noise.

  A wide range of emotions competed for dominance, including the doubt. Should he have come? Tom didn’t want him there. He wasn’t willing to answer his questions.

  And what good does faith in fairness do if no one honors it? You’d like to think you’ll be able to force answers out of him, but what are you going to do? Hold a gun to a terminally ill man’s head? You can’t make him do a thing for you.

  Tom’s unexpected enmity and cruel remarks also stung.

  “I obviously haven’t wanted anything to do with you, have I? If I’d wanted to see you, it wouldn’t have been an issue. I didn’t want to… I jacked off in a tube. All the thought I’ve put into you in the past twenty-six years was that initial five minutes with a porno mag… I don’t want to be known by you! I don’t want to know you!”

  Wouldn’t you be at all curious? Wouldn’t you care about us?

  And it struck him. None of these spiteful statements had been directed to an “us.” At no time had Tom included Beau. He hadn’t insinuated that the “you” he kept saying referred to Luke and his sister. It would’ve been simple to slip in an “either of” or “both of,” but Tom hadn’t. And his actions, the real ones he couldn’t veil, revealed the truth. He wanted that sonogram picture. He wanted only Beau.

  Like with everyone else, I’m second best. If not third. His heart shrunk. And you don’t know me to know that she’s better. At least my parents had years of comparison to make their decision. How many times have you thought about her? Wanted to see her? Know her? Or what if you already do know her?

  If Beau had known for years about their father’s secret past, maybe she’d met Tom. And how did he know Tom also hadn’t met Jake? Again, Jake had been identified as the preferable son.

  He walked into Tom’s living room. The strategy of trying to feel hatred toward everyone in the universe, instead of sorry for himself worked as well as it usually didn’t. The struggle just wasn’t worth fighting.

  Luke put his hand over the piano’s cheek block and surveyed the illuminated buildings.

  I just want to be as good as everyone else. If you don’t care about us both, fine. But why am I always inferior? What’s wrong with me?

  He wasn’t sure if there was anything Tom could tell him that would resolve this question or where he could find the answer for himself. At his core, Luke knew why Beau or Jake were favored. They were better than him. He couldn’t fool anyone into believing otherwise. A stranger who lived two thousand miles away and had never seen him knew immediately. Luke wasn’t worth caring about. He wasn’t worth anything.

  I’ll stay tonight, but tomorrow I’m leaving. Answers or no answers. I don’t know where I’ll go, but it won’t be to anyone else. I’ll always find the same.

  The piano bench was halfway out, and he sat on its corner so he could still survey the city. On a whim, he placed his fingers to the far right keys and gave B a tap.

  But the resonance inside the piano wasn’t right. And when he pressed the key a second time, again it returned an abnormal sound. Luke leaned back to peer down the hallway. No one had been there, and no light filtered from any open doors.

  He put his fingers on the high keys and hit all five separately, ending in the B. They were each horribly off, and not only with the pitch. A grand should sing every note with a rich quality, but the chords sounded weighed down. He’d heard Tom playing his piano just over an hour ago, and the quality hadn’t been stifled.

  Luke stood and lifted the top. The cause became apparent right away. There were half a dozen upside-down picture frames spread across the treble strings. He leaned aside once again to ensure the hallway was empty before turning the first one over.

  He almost dropped the lid, but fortunately remembered himself in time to lower it quietly. He settled on the piano bench with the frame in his hands.

  It’s me.

  Not a family portrait. And it wasn’t of him as an infant or small child. It also wasn’t his graduation photo. It was a picture of him a year ago. From the last performance he’d played before leaving to New York. The role he’d been so proud of, that his father had helped him practice. But he’d never seen a copy of this picture.

  Luke closed his eyes and remembered the instant when someone must’ve taken the shot.

  It’d been the big number. The show’s pinnacle. And the moment had been all his. He shared the stage with no one. The new scenery had already been pushed forward as he stood singing, looking over the audience. And the backdrop that finished the setting change had been halfway down. Luke had started the final verse. He’d removed his jacket and tossed it stage left. He’d raised his right hand. And that’s when the picture had been snapped.

  God. To feel that rush. To be there again.

  Be there.

  Luke wondered…

  He reopened the lid of Tom’s piano and turned the other frames over one by one. Baby pictures of him and Beau were there, as well as the graduation pictures. A family portrait from a few years ago. A frame of his sister and Jake kissing in front of their wedding cake. But these photographs were professionally taken.

  Dad could’ve sent them. And I guess he could’ve taken this picture of me too, but wouldn’t I have seen it? The rest are copies.

  He pictured the theater layout in his head.

  Dad was there every night. He sat in the same reserved spot on the far left side. I felt him watching me there.

  But Luke could tell from his body position in the picture, and from the angle of the stage, that the photographer had been on the right.

  “Did you really come to see me perform?” Luke whispered, setting the frame in his lap. “You traveled two thousand miles to see me s
ing on stage and take a photo?”

  He searched his memory for Tom. Tried to recall noticing him, speaking to him, shaking his hand. But there was nothing, and he could’ve been at any of the dozen shows. He’d entered and departed like a ghost, taking only the picture to place with the others.

  That’s what you were doing when you told me to wait by the door. Luke imagined Tom gathering the frames and hiding them inside his piano. You do care. You just don’t want me to know—

  A door opened and fear branched through him. He was already on unstable ground with Tom. He’d be rightfully angry to find Luke poking around.

  Luke hit the light switch, bathing the room in blackness. He shrank into the couch and waited for the light to reveal him. But it didn’t. There was no light from the hallway, and he only faintly heard running water in the kitchen. His nerves started to unwind.

  He’s only getting a drink.

  Since Tom hadn’t rotated the vertical blinds closed, the illuminated cityscape gave vague shadows to the room’s objects. Luke made out the framed photograph he’d left on the piano bench in the hurry to mask himself. He deliberated trying to retrieve it and push it under the couch, but the running water stopped, making it impossible for him to judge Tom’s location.

  The water started again. But also, right as he moved to hide the picture, it stopped. This pattern repeated three more times, until he wondered if Tom was playing a game. Did he have a hidden camera in the living room? Was he watching Luke begin to get up and then cower into hiding as he turned the water on and off? Manipulating the terror in someone who had their hand in the cookie jar? The water stopped a seventh time, and Luke sighed in frustration.

  Just catch me having snooped in your things. Stop toying with me. He waited for the water to come back on.

  But it didn’t. Instead he heard a glass breaking. And Tom calling, crying. Luke cautiously peeked at the dim outline of the hallway.

  “I want you to be here with me! You were supposed to be here with me! You were supposed to drop everything and come to me! And comfort me! And talk to me about when we were young and were going to live forever! I want you to stay by me, and hold my hand when I go!”

  Luke decided it was worth risking Tom’s wrath to ensure everything was all right. He expected the kitchen light to be on and lead him down the hallway, but it wasn’t. He followed the wall with the flat of his hand.

  “I don’t want to be alone! Why did you have to die and leave me? Why did you have to leave in the fucking first place? Why didn’t you stay with me?”

  You’re drunk. Drunk and talking to ghosts.

  Luke winced as he hit his knee on one of the kitchen barstools.

  “I don’t want to die like this! You motherfucker! I don’t want to die like this!”

  He felt for the switch and turned on the lights. He stepped around the bar, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. And he froze.

  Tom lay on the kitchen floor.

  Luke returned to seeing his father being hit by the Honda Civic. Of holding Jay’s head in his lap with blood gushing from the back of his skull. It was happening again. Tom was going to die.

  His chest repeatedly seized in panic as he knelt by Tom and took his hands.

  It’s happening again. All over again.

  But Tom did what Jay hadn’t. He opened his eyes. Although he didn’t seem able to concentrate on Luke, they were still open. He was alive.

  Luke helped him up and led him through the dark hall to his bedroom. Tom’s skin felt like he’d been sitting in the sun for hours. He kept looking at Luke in a strange way of seeing past him. And while Luke tried to remain levelheaded, inside he neared hysteria.

  Just get him in bed. Then find a thermometer. Should I call 9-1-1? Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

  He didn’t know what to do. Tom hadn’t said what he was dying from. Was this the end? Luke had been around dead bodies for twenty-six years, but he’d never seen someone die until Jay. Was this what happened when you didn’t die in a car accident? Did you become pliant and obedient? Lose your awareness?

  “You’ll stay with me, Jay. Won’t you? This time you’ll stay?”

  Did you hallucinate? He decided against correcting Tom. If he wasn’t thinking lucidly, he might argue, and there wasn’t time. Luke needed to take action. Fuck the thermometer. He needed ice. Bags of ice. He needed to build a fucking igloo.

  “Please, stay with me. You have to. There’s no reason why you can’t.”

  Tom grabbed his wrist. With his other hand, he touched a piece of Luke’s hair that’d fallen across his forehead. The tender way with which Tom pushed back the lock of hair suspended the anxiety.

  “I won’t be long. I’ll try not to be. Just don’t leave me.”

  And Luke knew he couldn’t. If Tom was about to die, and he wanted Jay to stay with him until the end, how could he refuse?

  “I’ll stay.”

  Tom smiled. Luke knelt by the bed and tried to return the smile, though it felt cracked.

  But please don’t die right now. I can’t handle this. You said yourself, “A boy shouldn’t have to bury his father.” You’re not my father, but you’re something. Even if you refuse to tell me anything. I know you care. Tom had closed his eyes. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I can’t bear to lose anyone else, Tom. Please don’t die.

  As minutes went by, Tom’s breaths grew relaxed, and the pulse Luke felt from holding his hands kept steady. He at last separated from Tom to take further action.

  Luke went to the windows on the right side of the bedroom. He threw them open to let the winter air in, still so overwhelmed he barely sensed the cold. He saturated a washcloth in the adjacent bathroom’s sink. After wringing the excess water, he returned to Tom’s side and sponged the cloth across his tacky forehead.

  Luke only wondered if he should leave when Tom’s temperature seemed to be reducing. But as he was about to, Tom sat up with a start. He was a zombie, not acknowledging Luke’s existence and intent on a singular purpose—to be sick in the bathroom.

  It felt like Tom spent hours vomiting into the toilet while Luke watched, unsure what to do. He felt relieved when the sleep walker initially returned to bed; however, Tom was up again to the bathroom dry heaving only moments after being down. Then back to bed. To the toilet. To the bed. All without a word.

  What do I do? There’s nothing to do! Nothing!

  On one of these trips, Tom stumbled to the floor and expelled a trace amount of stomach acid. He spoke for the first time in hours, apologizing to Jay for the mess.

  Luke knelt beside him on the floor. He said not to worry; he’d take care of it. And when he patted Tom’s shoulder, the touch appeared to relieve him. So over the toilet a couple of minutes later, Luke sat next to him with his hand on his back. To some degree, it put him at ease to provide a small measure of comfort.

  But the pain. When Tom woke, thrashing from the pain, it was like lighting a firecracker under a coffee can. Luke couldn’t think of anything he’d experienced that compared with what he saw. The unpleasantness in his life had been only that—discomfort. Pain had been simple to remedy. It was temporary and able to be walked off. This wasn’t crushing a hand in a car door though. It was a struggle with internal torment that couldn’t be escaped. It was being backed into a corner by a bull and gored again and again.

  “Do you have pills, Tom? Anything?”

  There was no answer except for the screaming. Something about it wrapping around his spine, biting into his brain. God knew what “it” referred to.

  Think! Goddamn it! They’re probably in the kitchen. But I can’t leave him!

  Then he noticed the luggage by the door—the carry-on bag slung over a chair. The bulb in his mind flickered. Tom would’ve taken any medication with him to Pennsylvania.

  Please be here, please be here! Luke tore through the bag and could’ve wept for the relief of finding pill bottles in the bottom.

  He skimmed the instructions before dumping out th
e doses the labels advised and forcing them down Tom’s throat. After that, there’d been nothing to do but crouch beside the bed and let Tom crush his hand as he prayed for the medication to take away the pain.

  “It’s okay. You’re not alone. You’re safe. It’ll be okay.” Luke stroked the hair from his face with his free hand, speaking for both of them. He didn’t know if Tom could hear him anymore.

  Several minutes passed until the pills worked. The violent tremors stopped, and Tom loosened the grip on Luke’s hand, his breaths evening out as if he was asleep.

  Thank you, God. Luke pressed his forehead into the bedspread and began to cry. Thank you for sparing him. Not so he can indulge me. Not so—

  He jumped to feel a touch on his head.

  “Shh, shh.” Tom didn’t open his eyes. “It’s okay.”

  Luke pushed his face into the comforter and howled. Tom trying to console him made it worse. Clips of the last few days spiraled through his mind:

  Jay dying in his lap without waking up. Jake pulling the rings from his father’s dead hands. Beau and Jackie clinging to him like they never had. And all of them turning against him. Yelling at him. Hating him. Driving him from their lives. The things Tom had said too. Adamant that he didn’t care. Trying to lie with the cruel statements and excuses. Everyone lying to him. Hiding from him. But the strongest image which kept overshadowing everything else…

  “I was thinking how we watched that recording of Robert Cuccioli a hundred times. We stayed up all night the day you got the call, watching his every move because you wanted to nail that part.” Jay was driving past the onramp to the freeway. He was going to take the long way.

  Why didn’t you take the long way? Why?

  “And you absolutely did. Absolutely! You were meant for that role. It was like a second skin on you.”