Boy

by James Stryker

  It was still unfortunate for Tom. He’d stayed with a person he could scarcely tolerate, living to play the piano and talk to Jay frequently. To hear about the children and life, to reminisce over their youth. To just listen to the sound of his voice and pretend Jay wasn’t two thousand miles away with a life Tom could never be part of. He’d refused to progress and had only himself to blame, but it was still unfortunate.

  I’m here now though, Luke thought as he hugged Tom. And I won’t leave you. I’ll be brave enough to stay.

  When Tom pulled away, he forced a laugh. “You’re a lousy kid. A real fucking piece of shit.”

  “I know. But I’m not stupid.” Luke tipped his head toward the keyboard. “Tell me about the best place you ever performed.”

  “Ha, is there a question that could open a bigger can of worms?” Tom started to play livelier than Luke had heard in a while. “Have you ever been to Spain? Jesus fucking Christ. The venues are fabulous, but the food? The steaks? A-fucking-mazing.”

  As much as Luke had learned about Jay, as close as he now felt to the man his father had been, his favorite moments over the past eight months had been in the last two. Tom had opened up to him, and while things had continued their downward progression, Luke believed Tom had been happy. And he hadn’t worried about Tom killing himself.

  Luke scuffed the cemetery grass with his shoe before he walked back to the car. He circled to the passenger side and took a mahogany box from the front seat. It had picture frames on all four sides, each one filled. As he returned to Jay’s grave with the box in his hands, Luke’s eyes filled with tears.

  “That’s great. Seriously. You can put it on your mantle and turn it every day, so no one will ever know who’s in there. It’ll drive people crazy,” Tom had commented when Luke found the urn online. And when it came, Tom selected the four pictures.

  He wanted one side to have the picture he’d taken at Luke’s final performance. Another side was to be the portrait Beau and Ginger had sent of them and their baby. The third held a picture of Tom and Jay twenty-eight years ago, a hand on each other’s shoulders and wide grins on their faces. And the final spot showed a photo of Tom with Luke.

  The picture had been taken on the piano bench, with the other photographs in the background. Luke held the camera in front of them, and they both smiled though they knew why they were taking it.

  “I look like shit, but you can keep that one to the back,” Tom said.

  “You don’t look like shit.”

  “Don’t waste lies on a dying man. Lying to me about how well I look isn’t worth burning in hell.”

  “I don’t believe in hell.”

  “You don’t? Okay. Lie to me.” Tom shrugged.

  Luke had laughed as well. Originally. But he couldn’t laugh now. He stood at his father’s grave holding the urn and let the tears fall down his cheeks.

  You did look so sick. And there was nothing I could do. You kept getting sicker and sicker. And I know you were trying, that you didn’t want to die, and it’s not your fault, but there was nothing I could do.

  He remembered the last time Tom had been in the hospital. By then, only Luke played the piano. Tom rested on the couch and listened, an arrangement he’d taken to with unexpected ease.

  “It’s okay. A musician uses the same parts of their brain whether they’re actually playing or thinking about playing. So I’ll let you do the hard work.”

  “Okay, Tom.”

  “I don’t mess up as often as you do though. You make a lot more mistakes.”

  “I know.” Luke played only octaves when they talked. He couldn’t carry on conversations while playing a nonstop soundtrack in his head like Tom. He needed concentration and sheet music.

  “You should practice more. Practice makes perfect.”

  “Already been said, yogi. Already been said.”

  “That’s master yogi to you. Now shut the fuck up and play more than scales.”

  The last time Tom had gone into the hospital had been because he lost consciousness. He’d been leaving the room when he blacked out. Although he came around, Luke insisted they go.

  He drove Tom to the emergency room and completed the paperwork while Tom was being seen. Although he’d attended the doctor’s appointments since arriving and had taken charge of tracking Tom’s medication and keeping records of the various tests and procedures, he’d never done the paperwork. In listing an emergency contact, he knew to put himself. But in the “relationship” field, he hesitated.

  If I don’t and it comes down to the wire, what if they won’t let me see him? He’d watched too many medical dramas where everyone except family was kicked out of the room. What if Tom couldn’t speak for himself to voice wanting Luke there? He’d promised not to refer to him that way, but Luke had also sworn not to leave. Not to leave or be forced to leave. So he’d written the three letters in the box and slipped the document over the counter.

  Luke had been relieved for two reasons. First, there’d been no soap opera where medical staff tried to force him from Tom’s room. And second, when the nurse had let the listed relationship slip, Tom hadn’t flown off the handle.

  Luke had spoken in whispers with the doctors outside the room. Yes, he knew his father was dying, and there wasn’t anything they could do but make him comfortable. It’d be easier if they admitted his father in order to keep him on an IV of stronger pain medication. He didn’t have much longer. Chances were that he’d take his father and either be back at the hospital shortly, or he’d slip into a coma at home. But it was his choice. And he should discuss it with his father first.

  “Privately,” Luke said. If Tom heard them, he’d hit the roof.

  “Of course.”

  And cue the nurse who bounced into the room to adjust the morphine: “Mr. DuBelle, your son is here to see you.”

  Goddamn, motherfucker.

  “What?” Tom had been resting, but his eyes opened wide.

  “I said, ‘Your son is here to see you.’”

  You stupid, fucking bitch.

  “Leave.” Luke turned to the nurse and glared at her. “I said I wanted to talk to him privately. Privately! Get out!”

  She rushed out as if he’d lit the cuffs of her scrubs on fire. When the door closed behind her, Luke perched on the edge of the chair at Tom’s bedside and took his hand.

  “Tom, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But if I hadn’t put it on your intake form, I was worried they wouldn’t let me see you if something happened. I’m sorry.”

  He’d been heavily medicated, but Luke still expected Tom to be livid. His hand would shoot out like a viper, grasp him by the collar, and jerk him close. He’d yell, swear at him, and command Luke from his sight before pushing him backward in disgust. Tom’s original rules had been demolished, and this was the cardinal sin.

  But Tom closed his eyes.

  “I’m not your father. You had a father. But—” Tom paused, possibly to gain control as his voice wavered. “—over the past few months, you’ve been like a son to me. Like a son.” He reopened his eyes and turned to Luke, giving a weak smile. “So, even if I could kill you, I might, under the circumstances, reconsider.”

  That was a good way to put it. Going back to the first important truth—if Tom was okay, so was he. Tom had been like a father to him. And as he was reminded by the beeping machines, he was also on the verge of having to be okay with losing him.

  “Before you become a blubbering mess, I need to own up to one more thing. Something important.” Tom proved again his aptitude for reading Luke’s thoughts.

  “Of course.” Luke pressed his hand and tried to focus on whatever vital thing Tom wanted to impart.

  “I know I probably don’t need to tell you, but what I said the night you showed up at my condo? About putting no more thought into you than five minutes with a bad porno mag? I lied.”

  “I know you did.”

  “It was a great porno mag.”

  As he had on the first night he sp
ent with Tom, Luke buried his face in his folded arms at Tom’s bedside. But instead of sobbing, he laughed. And when he felt the hand ruffling his hair, he hadn’t pretended it was Jay. He was glad it was Tom.

  “You really are a mess, you know? Save your keening for when I no longer require you to entertain me.” Tom chuckled, but his voice became solemn once Luke looked at him. “In all seriousness, I thought of you often. You and your sister. What things could’ve been, and what they really were. I was proud of you and loved you though you weren’t mine to be proud of or to love.”

  In a way, Luke wished it’d been left at the joke. He felt like a hand grasped his throat, and his stomach was grinding into knots. He couldn’t speak. How could he possibly respond with anything as—

  “Don’t bother. I prefer to have the last word. I don’t say things to hear responses. I speak because I like the sound of my own voice. That’s where you get it from.” Tom winked. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Glad for a momentary reprieve, Luke had proceeded to repeat the options the doctors had given. Tom could have a room at the hospital, or he could go home. They could make him more comfortable at the hospital, but it was up to him.

  “Where do you want me to go?”

  Luke hadn’t understood why Tom asked this. He wasn’t the person dying, and he’d assured Tom that whatever his choice, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  “What would be easiest for you, Luke?”

  Easiest for him? To not have Tom die. To have Jesus Christ appear at the foot of the bed and, in touching Tom’s body, rip this awful disease away. To walk out the doors with him, return to the condo, and hear him play his piano long into the night. That would’ve been easiest. But with divine intervention not on the table per the norm…

  If Tom stayed at the hospital, there’d be a team of medical professionals to help Luke care for him. Tom wouldn’t be alone, and neither would Luke. If they went home, there’d come a moment when Tom would be gone. And he could handle messes, medications, and vigils. He felt he was even ready to go through another night like the first, with Tom hallucinating. But he didn’t know if he could stand to be alone. If Tom died at the hospital, there’d be a nurse or someone he could embrace and cry on. If he died at home, Luke would have no one. Did Tom know he was scared of that? Not of his dead body, but of the silent rooms? Yes, the hospital would be easiest.

  But he’d seen in Tom’s face that, though he’d be willing to do whatever Luke preferred, he wanted to go home.

  “I think we should go home,” Luke said. “How will your disciples find you here, yogi? I didn’t hang a note on the door.”

  “That’s right. You’re a very irresponsible young man.” Tom gave a deep sigh.

  Luke was sure this wasn’t the first he’d been called a man, but if it’d been said to him prior, it hadn’t been true. So he liked to think of this as the first real time.

  “I’ll let them know we’re going.”

  “Tell them we’re taking this drip with us; it’s fantastic.”

  “Tom.” He stood in the doorway, unable to forget what Tom had said. He couldn’t leave without a response. Facing a difficult situation with bravery was part of no longer being a little boy. “If I’d known, I—”

  “Would have sent me a mug and a tie every year? What do I need twenty-seven mugs for? And I don’t wear ties. Don’t beat yourself up about things you had no awareness of and that don’t matter anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t have sent you stupid shit. I just—”

  “If we’re talking high quality merch, maybe you should beat yourself up about it.”

  “Please.” It may’ve been the manner in which Luke made the simple request—the end of the word choked back as he fought to stay collected. He was confident there’d be no interruption. “You’re right, I did have a father, but you’re still special to me. And I do love you.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I just wish I had more time with you.”

  Luke considered walking out of the room. End the scene in a drama-filled, heart-wrenching moment. But this wasn’t Broadway, and he wasn’t just reading lines.

  “You’ve given me a lot over the past few months, and I thank you for that.” He didn’t have to look at Tom again to know that he wasn’t alone in battling emotion. Purposefully, he stared at the door jamb.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Yes.” Silence passed until Luke relented and met Tom’s eyes. “We can swing by the fro-yo place on the way home.”

  Tom smiled and settled back into his pillows.

  Luke left the room and held it together until he reached the nurse’s station. He broke down as he relayed that he’d be taking his father home to die.

  As he’d promised himself eight months prior, Luke stayed with Tom until it was over. He set up a bed next to the piano and played for him as well as he could, though his mistakes became more frequent, compounding until it was just noise. Tom hadn’t seemed to care. For a while, he pressed his hand against the frame to feel the vibrations from the casing as Luke played.

  But there came a point when Luke hadn’t been able to play further. And it was around the time when Tom hadn’t seemed to be listening anymore. Luke pulled a chair to the bed and held Tom’s hand.

  He’d been terrified for the end to come, but Luke tried to give himself courage by comparing this with Jay’s death. Jay’s had been the only other death he’d witnessed, and it had been terrible. Holding someone’s hand as they slipped away had to be better than cradling a ruptured head in your lap. Wasn’t that true? It had to be.

  It wasn’t. He would’ve rather had Tom get mowed up by a Honda Civic like his father, or commit suicide as he’d planned months ago. It’d been horrible to sit by his side and wait for the inevitable. He’d meditated on a thousand things he should’ve said to Jay when he’d been dying, a thousand things he’d say if he had another chance. But now he had nothing. As Tom’s list had escaped him twenty-eight years earlier, Luke’s list failed him now. Such moments couldn’t be planned. He didn’t know what to say.

  So he didn’t say. He sang. In a quiet voice, he sang what he’d sung when Tom had seen him on stage. With one hand, he stroked his hair. The other he kept clasped in Tom’s hand in the exact position it had been in the last time he’d opened his eyes. And he whispered the song over and over. It broke repeatedly with the lumps in his throat and the pauses he had to take because the tears were too much when Tom’s breaths became ragged. Over and over and over. Until Tom’s breaths hadn’t come at all.

  And then Luke had been alone.

  He was just as alone now, holding the urn and looking at his father’s grave. A house full of his family waited to welcome him back, but he still felt alone. As alone as Jay may have felt when he knew he was trapped on a stage in a performance he wasn’t meant for? As alone as Tom had been when Jay rejected him? When Ginger had spent a month waiting for divorce papers? When Jackie and Beau had spent the same month worrying he was dead in a gutter? Maybe.

  Luke realized that everyone felt alone sometimes. The awareness was nothing fancy. Nothing multifaceted or clever like the yogi would have appreciated. But it was true. Everyone felt alone. And the reverse was also true. Everyone also felt like the world revolved around them sometimes.

  But neither place is a good home. Neither is a true home. You have to battle to the middle ground. To be happy with yourself, but striving for better.

  Luke had initially planned to scatter Tom’s ashes over Jay’s grave, but now faced with that moment of action, he didn’t feel right about it. He sighed and tilted his head from side to side, trying to arrive at what Tom would want. What his father would want.

  Even if I’m not the center of the universe, though, I still matter. And I don’t want to dump you here like a cigarette tray.

  So he took the urn back to the car and sat it in the front seat. He would keep Tom with him until the right place came along. If it came along. Until then, he’d place the urn on the m
antle of his apartment in New York. And he’d turn it so there was a new picture facing the room every day, just to keep people guessing who was in there.

  About the Author

  James Stryker is a Central Pennsylvania author who enjoys writing speculative and literary fiction. Themes in his work focus toward diversity in the LGBTQ spectrum and the voice of underrepresented or misunderstood viewpoints. His debut novel, Assimilation, was released in 2016.

  James shares a residence with a pack of pugs, who continue to disagree about the ratio of treats to writing. Despite his day job and writing projects, James is never too busy to connect with readers or other writers. He welcomes you to check out his website, follow him on social media, or drop a line to his email.

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  Coming Soon by James Stryker

  The Simplicity of Being Normal

  Excerpt

  “Amanda Michelle! I won’t tolerate that mouth of yours a second longer! Get out!”

  “Or what? You’ll hit me? Repeat performance sixteen years later. Go ahead!”

  If there was one positive thing to be said of his mother, it was that she avoided violence. While her own mother had often resorted to physical punishment, Scarlet had never put a hand on Stevie. And she’d only hit Sam once, which was how she learned her lesson.