By The Way
copyright 2006 by Mark Logan
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter 21
Do you sometimes
just miss the hell out of high school? I do. At least, I sure did at that
moment...
"Okay, y'all. Last half-a flight ta go," I said, exhausted.
It
was the first weekend in January and one of my brothers had been nice enough to
help me move my family's old refrigerator from our house to my dorm room, which
was on the third floor. It was a full-sized son of a bitch and heavier than
hell. We'd bought it in the 70's, and it was the obligatory lettuce green which
was cherished by so many households back then. Today they call it "avocado
green". I call it puke, but it sure beats "harvest gold." Anyway, my parents
had it in our basement ever since we moved into the house in Stone Mountain when
they used an "almond" colored fridge, thus keeping us current in the 80's.
There were four of us, myself, my brother, Greg and a guy we'd corralled down
the hall named John, moving the behemoth up through the first floor lobby and
then up to the top floor. Being full-sized it was damn bulky and clunked on
every step -- all fifty of them. We made one last charge and shoved it up the
stairs and into the hallway that our dorm room was on. Once we got it into the
room and situated, my brother Roger stopped to checkout our new bunks. He'd
never been to my dorm before, but was no stranger to the tight confines. Both
of my brothers had attended and graduated from Georgia Tech.
"This is cool," he said. "How'd y'all come up with this design?"
"I
think it was Greg's idea, tell ya the truth," I said. Most bunk beds were
either arranged in tandem across the one long wall of the room, or set opposite
each other with a space in the middle. Some guys would even have swing-down
ladders gaining them access to the upper bunks while having a living area
below.
But being architecture students, we just had to be different. We raised the
beds off the floor with enough room for a recliner chair beneath mine and a
double sleeper sofa under Greg’s, both of which came from Greg’s house. The
beds themselves were set against the wall and were arranged to form an L.
Greg’s head was nearest the windows. The foot end of his bed faced the side of
the head end of mine. If I were to lie on my right side, I would be looking
right at Greg’s feet. Fortunately, a low (very low) shelf separated the two
beds. It was large enough to hold a small bed lamp, a couple of books and my
alarm clock. Basically, when you walked into the room from the hall, if you
were drunk, you'd walk right into the side of my bunk; there was only about four
feet of space between the door and my side. The cool thing about this was that
you could walk around the foot-end of my bunk and still have a
full-height space in which to walk around the rest of the room. The fridge was
behind the door as you opened it. Greg's built-in desk was nearest the door,
mine nearest the window.
But wait a minute, wait a minute, you're saying. Paul! Bubbaleh! How did we
go from dinner at American Pie to being roommates?
Easy!
That first dinner went off pretty well without a hitch. Well, except for the
fact that I was certain he'd forgotten my name from when I'd introduced myself
to him in studio. So, genius that I am, I thought up a funny story to tell him
where my mom called my name, and once I said it you could see a light go off in
his head. I didn't make a big deal about it, but it was funny.
It
turned out that Greg was actually a second year college student, but this was
his first year in architecture. Our senses of humor were exactly alike. Both
of us mimicked every sound and distinctive voice that we heard. Sometimes we'd
have whole conversations as two different people, much to the amusement of our
fellow studio haunters. Conversation was never lacking. We talked about funny
stuff, bullshit, serious topics, you name it. I was always able to talk about
things to Alan, Don and Glen, but I think that I'd matured somewhat over the
past year. For some reason talking to Greg was a lot different. Perhaps
because the other guys had known so much about my life and my past, but with
Greg it was like involving myself with somebody who knew absolutely nothing
about me. In a way it gave me a bit of freedom to be a little different than I
was used to. Plus, I'm sure that moving off to college and turning twenty-one
had something to do with the maturation process.
So
the weeks went by, that first quarter, and Greg and I were around each other a
lot. Many times, if it was really late, we'd head over to Dunkin' Donuts for
doughnuts and coffee -- well, in my case hot chocolate. I hate coffee. Anyway,
it was nothing to find us out with other studio-heads at three in the morning,
taking a break from one project or the next in order to fill our gullets. After
spending the previous year so seriously focused on my life and my health, it was
an enormous pressure relief to be around somebody with Greg's personality. The
two of us were like the proverbial peas in a pod, and soon enough, if our
classmates saw one of us, they'd ask us where the other one was.
The days at the cabin seemed eons away.
The only bad thing, for Greg, was that he was still living at home with his
parents. It doesn't sound like a big deal to live four or five miles from the
campus, but when you have to trudge projects back and forth, in your car, to
studio, it really sucked.
Greg worked at Applebee's as a cook. Well, sometimes he cooked, sometimes he
prepared the food for the cooks, sometimes he worked expo. Basically, he worked
the kitchen. One night during the first quarter, my roommate David, John and I
headed over to Applebee's to catch a late dinner. It was in the middle of the
week and the place wasn't really all that busy. I asked our waiter if Greg was
working. He was, in fact, there that night, so the waiter went to mention to
him that we were sitting in the dining room. A few minutes later, Greg came
over to our table, sat down, and we all started talking about school.
David had asked Greg why he wasn't living in the dorms along with the rest of
the architecture students, and Greg replied that he'd turned in his application
to the housing office past the deadline to move in the current quarter. Earlier
in the week, David had decided that he was going to move down the hall into
another room with John. The two of them smoked, and John's current roommate and
myself didn't, so John and David wanted to have a room where they could both
smoke without leaving on account of us. So naturally, David asked Greg if he'd
be interested in moving in with me, since I'd be without a roommate. Greg
looked pretty uncomfortable, like he'd been put on the spot, so I tried to play
it off by saying something along the lines of "you don't have to if you don't
want to, blah blah." I did think that it was a good idea, if not more practical
for Greg. He said that he'd give it some thought.
So
obviously, he agreed to move in with me. His application was already in with
the housing office, and his deposit paid, so all that was needed was for me to
bop on down and request him as my roommate for the winter quarter. A week later
Greg received a letter in the mail, which was basically the contract, assigning
him to my room, and the deal was done. During the Christmas break, he and I
designed the new bunks for the room and actually built them in his driveway so
we knew that they'd actually fit once we got them up to the room.
Once Roger was done checking out the room, which took all of three seconds, the
four of us headed over to Pizza Hut for a late lunch. Since John and Roger had
helped us move the refrigerator in, Greg and I bought their lunch. When we were
done eating, we all headed back over to the dorms, and Roger left to go back
home. Not much to do in the dorms when so many people haven't returned yet, so
Greg and I headed down to John's room. The guy liked to smoke, but he didn't
like his room filled with it, and would always sit near an open window so he
could blow the fumes outside. At some point Greg headed back down the hall to
our room. I think he wanted to just veg out for a while, so I let him have his
space.
* * * * *
It
was the weekend, and being early in the quarter, our studio profs hadn't totally
smothered us with projects to do, so I'd gone home to do laundry, regular
homework, etc. George had liberty for a week before he had to go to Saudi
Arabia for a 6-8 month tour, or whatever they're called. He'd come in the night
before, and he, Glen, Alan and myself had gone out for a few drinks. Being a
Friday night, Don was bouncing at the bar he worked at in Buckhead. The four of
us had a good time, but we didn't get tanked. Well, most of us didn't. It's
funny, once I'd turned 21 the previous October, drinking was no longer a big
deal to me. Alan was still two months away from his twenty-first birthday, but
as big as the damn guy was, nobody bothered to card him. Being a UGA football
player, Alan had also gotten used to putting away more than a few beers in his
three years at that school. Smartly, though, he didn't drink so much that it
effected him, physically. The guy was a study in muscular perfection. But I
guess you had to be, when you had hundreds of pounds of flesh and muscle
propelling themselves at you on a constant basis. The nickname "Diesel"
certainly fit him.
Glen had come down from Tennessee for the weekend, but things were somewhat
strained between him and me. Over the past few years that I'd hung out with
him, he and I'd become very close, obviously. I'm not sure if we just hit a
certain phase of our friendship, but all of a sudden, after my piano recital, I
started feeling like I was more of a psychologist than a friend. We'd nearly
stopped hanging out, but I'd found that whenever he had a problem, he'd call me
to get my opinion or my advice on how to handle it. To top that off he'd
started hanging out more and more with Philip, which never really made much
sense to me. But what are ya gonna do. I was getting jealous of his time with
Phil, and I was getting sick of only
being a problem solver. I guess part of my own pride was hurt, because I
started thinking, hell, am I just not fun to hang out with anymore? Add that to
Alan's being at school most of the time, and Don's working on the weekends,
well, it started to feel like my old life was crumbling apart, and I lacked the
mortar to put it all back together.
But it's not like I should complain, or bitch, that much. Every weekend, or
every Saturday, I had dedicated an hour or so to my voice coach, and during the
week our projects kept me busy. We normally had two to three substantial
projects in studio each quarter, and whenever you neared the end of each of
those, you ended up spending more hours in the classroom. My life was busy too,
and I had no way of stopping it or slowing it down.
Rhett's opened up that January, without me singing. As all three partners had
said, I wasn't quite ready to go on stage, but one other guy also had to sit out
for a little while. Fine with me. I may have been a big cut-up, but I was
always nervous as shit whenever I sang seriously in front of anyone. One change
in the bar was that more waiters were hired who could also sing. It was sort of
a throwback to the thirties and forties when nightclubs were too cheap to hire
talent, but the singers were able to make money by waiting tables. I guess if
you were an up-and-coming singer it worked out great. There were still to be
the six main entertainers. I still laugh when I think of myself doing anything
like that. But the restaurant/bar/club opened up and was a pretty strong
success. Being in midtown Atlanta definitely guaranteed a myriad of patrons,
but it was pretty fun being amongst the buzz and excitement.
But I digress.
George was pretty boozed up. He thought he was good at hiding it, but he
wasn't. It was quite comical to watch him. He's one of those guys who when he
gets drunk, loves everybody. He loved me. He loved Glen. He loved Alan. It
was a friggin' love fest. If we had a baggie of drugs, we could've jump started
the 60's. But there was no way in hell we were going to let him drive home. So
Glen drove him. Probably not the best idea, since he drove like a bat out of
hell and was more likely to get pulled over for speeding. Then if the cops
smelled beer, well, we all know what would happen next. But Glen wasn't drunk
and could probably pass a breathilizer.
I
drove Alan to his house. I no longer had the Caprice, but was driving a Sentra,
and to see his big, lumbering ass folded up in the front seat was quite
comical. What was even funnier was watching him get out of the car, and then
stretch his hulking frame back into its natural shape. He asked if I'd like to
hang out a bit at his house instead of going home.
"I'm not sure, man," I said, looking down at my clock. "It's nearly one o'clock
right now, and I gotta get up to go to my voice lesson."
"Um...I uh..." he looked uncomfortable. "I need to talk to you."
I
turned off the car and got out. "Sure. Lessgo." If Alan needed to talk, I was
gonna listen. I walked around the car towards the front porch.
"Hey man, it's nice enough out. Can we go sit out back?" He had a concerned
look on his face.
"Sure 'nuff. Lessgo." I tried to be lighthearted without sounding insincere.
We made our way around the house, taking the same path four-and-a-half years
earlier when we first kissed on his patio. The landscaping had really grown in
that time, I thought as we made our way to the back. His parents had purchased
new furniture since then, but basically it was the same. It was an unusually
balmy night, to be the second weekend in February. The weathermen had predicted
some storms overnight as a cold front moved in, but they were famous for being
wrong.
Alan took a seat on a lounge chair and lay back on it; I did the same on the
lounge chair next to his. I knew something was up so I just waited to see what
he wanted to talk about.
Finally, he took a breath. "It's been a long time since you and I were first on
this patio, Paul." He looked over at me. I could still see the traces of the
kid who was sixteen years old that first evening after the football game and the
party at what's-her-name's house. But he'd matured a lot. Still the cool as
hell green eyes, but his hair was kept shorter, nearly a crew cut. I couldn't
help but smile at him. Deep down, a part of me was still completely crazy about
him. I missed his strength. I missed the intimacy with him. I missed the
feeling of knowing that I could just let down all of my guard. God, I missed
him. "What are you grinnin' at, ya goob?" he smiled.
"Oh. Nothin'. Just remembering a couple of scared teenagers looking up at that
same moon," I nodded towards the sky. "Here I was, some little nebbech, sitting
across from a jock who'd shown more interest in me in five minutes than anyone
had in the previous seventeen years--"
"You weren't a nerd," he interrupted.
"Alan. Yeah, I was. I had a mirror. I may not have had the glasses, but I was
a nerdling," I said, and he laughed out loud. I missed his laugh, too.
"Anyway, you and I both sitting here, trying to figure out how things were going
to go. It's funny, looking back I have the eyes of someone a bit more mature.
Hard to believe how scared I was then."
"Me too," he said.
I
nodded, then sat up and put my elbows on my knees, palm under my chin. "Is
everything alright?"
Alan looked down and started playing with the hem on his untucked shirt. He
wasn't nervously fidgeting, just running his fingers back and forth slowly over
it. "There's somethin' I gotta tell ya." His eyebrows raised and lowered once
as he said that.
I
was starting to get a funny feeling. "Alan...what?"
He
paused a second longer. "You know Reed," he stated. I did. At the end of
summer I'd helped Alan move in with his new roommate into an apartment. Alan
was going into his junior year and didn't want to stay in the dorms any longer.
Fortunately, he'd moved in with a guy who was going into his senior year, Reed.
"Yeah. Seems like a pretty nice guy," I said. He said nothing. "Alan. What?"
"Um...Reed is...uh..." He couldn't seem to finish.
Now the funny feeling was growing, though I didn't know why. "Alan. What?"
"Reed and I are...dammit this is hard," he muttered the last part.
"Dammit,
man, what is up?" I was feeling something in my gut...
"Reed and I are...well, we're more than roommates, now." Bam! Fuck!
That's what it was.
I
sat back onto the lounge chair in a daze and looked up at the moon. "Woah," I
said, quietly.
He
blew a short breath through his nose. "Yeah. Woah." I could see in my
peripheral vision that he was still looking down at his shirt.
I
couldn't' believe it. I mean, I figured that at some point, both of us would
find somebody new, but I never imagined how I'd feel when we actually did. It
was killing me inside; not because I didn't have anybody, or that Alan had
somebody else, but because somebody else had Alan. It was probably really silly
of me to think that way. Hell, we'd called it quits a little over two years
before. But Christ, the guy still had my heart, though up until that time I was
too stupid to recognize that.
I
took a deep breath and blew it out. "How long..."
He
sat there for a minute. I could tell this wasn't easy for him, either. "A
couple of months."
I
nodded and looked a thousand miles into the patio beneath his seat.
"I
knew the guy didn't really date," he went on to explain, "but I never really
thought about it. Then a couple of months after we moved in together--"
"Please. No details," I said.
"I
know. I wasn't going to. I'm saying that I realized a couple of months after
moving in that I was feeling...something..."
I
was still staring at the ground. "Except you didn't have the distance to worry
about." I wasn't being cruel, or trying to be hurtful. I was just stating a
fact. Alan cleared his throat. "You've known him a while, haven't you?" I was
still in a bit of shock. I knew that Alan had met him at the end of his
sophomore year in one of his business classes.
He
nodded, and I looked back up at him, square in the eye.
"Is he good to you?"
Alan's mouth turned down at the corner on one side. He simply nodded.
"Wow," I whispered. "I never thought I'd feel this way...." I looked back
down.
He
cleared his throat again. "What way?"
"I...I...don't know. I'm not sure how I feel," I said.
"Can you...figure it out?" I looked up at his face. He looked like a hurt,
little kid. This time, I told myself, I was not going to cry.
I
cleared my throat and took a breath. "I guess I've been so busy with school,
and my life, whatever...I never even thought about one of us meeting someone
else. I do know this, though. Reed's the luckiest son of a bitch alive." I
attempted to smile, as did Alan. "Alan, has it been two years? Shit." I
looked back down and shook my head slowly. "I still love you, ya know." He
shifted in his seat a bit.
"I
do, too," he said.
"Well," I said, trying my best to sound positive, "I hope that it all...works
out...for ya." I stood up, feeling the need to run as far away from there as
possible. Alan stood up, and we were facing each other.
He
had a dazed and confused look on his face. "Do you really?" he spoke, quietly.
I
smiled to keep from losing it and pulled him into a hug. I nearly melted when
he hugged me back. I couldn't help it, and I turned into a ball of mush. "No,"
I whispered. I buried my face into his shoulder and he gripped me tighter. "I
mean, I do," I said, my voice muffled by his body, "but why couldn't it have
been us? You and me? Huh? Why couldn't things have worked out?" Then I
couldn't help it. I started doing that man-cry again, like I'd done
two-and-a-half years before in his dorm room when we'd broken up. Alan gripped
me even tighter and didn't say a word. I had truly believed that I was over
him, and that I could just be friends forever with him. Now, I knew that wasn't
true. I needed him, because he was my missing piece. He was my keystone. God,
how I loved him.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the side of my head. "I am so...damn...sorry."
I
pushed away from him. "It's okay, Alan. I understand. I really do. I don't
have to like it, but I understand." He rubbed the heels of his hands in his
eyes for a second, and I wiped at my leaking nose with my wrist. "You know I
only want the best for you." In my mind I continued with the thought, 'but I
just wanted it to be with me.'
"Paul, I'll always love you," he said.
It
took immense control to keep from losing it completely. But I'm a guy, and guys
don't just lose it. "I love you too, Alan." Part of me wanted to know the
logistics of being a Bulldog, playing an extremely important position at that,
and having a relationship with a guy. How did that work, how did they keep it
quiet? And then part of me didn't want to know at all. Because someone else
had Alan, now.
He
leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I closed my eyes and held him there
for a second, in my mind's eye.
"Well," I said, sniffing, "I'd better get on home now. Gotta get up early."
"Yeah," he croaked out.
"I'll uh...I'll see you around, Alan," I said, and walked back around the
house. I could feel his eyes looking after me. I wanted to turn around again
and look at him, but I knew if I did I'd be a complete wreck.
* * * * *
Saturday, February 9th at about 5:15 in the morning. I'm a person who has to
have white noise when I go to sleep. Ever since I was a kid I loved hearing the
humming sound of a fan, and I go bezerk at the idea of going to bed without
having one on. That particular morning I was woken up when my brain heard the
sudden silence in the room. The silence was overcome by the wind howling
outside, and the thunder rumbling. For a moment, my mind flashed back a few
hours earlier when Alan and I were sitting on his patio, enjoying the balmy
night. Well, it was balmy, but I don't think we enjoyed it.
I
got out of bed and started to head down the hall to the bathroom. As I did, I
looked down the stairwell and saw that my mom, my grandmother and my oldest
brother were all standing in the open front door, looking outside.
"What are y'all doin'?" I asked.
"Your dad's out running in this," my mom said.
Nothing really connected because my brain was still mostly asleep. "Why would
he go out running in this?" My dad had a habit of getting up every morning and
running two miles. Nothing tremendous, but enough to keep him in shape and his
heart rate in check.
"It wasn't like this when he started running," she said.
It
dawned on my why the power was out, and I proceeded to finish my business in the
bathroom. Afterwards, I headed downstairs just as Dad was coming around the
house. As he did, part of our chimney flue was ripped off by the wind and was
sent sailing across the street. One of our garbage cans soon followed as Dad
came into the house. He was drenched and out of breath, and the lightning was
flashing like a strobe light. Looks like I was wrong in my assumption of the
Atlanta weathermen's predictions for bad weather.
"Are you alright?" my grandmother asked.
Out of breath, he said, "You wouldn't believe it. It wasn't raining a drop
during the first part of my run, but once I turned to start coming back, it was
like somebody dumped a bathtub of water on me! It was hard running into all of
that rain, and the wind. Jesus!"
Soon, the winds died down and the rain slowed up. Before long the sky started
to lighten and we could see the damage from the storm around our house. Yes, it
was our chimney flue impaled in the neighbors front yard, and we'd need to
replace the garbage can that must've wound up in the Land of Oz, but otherwise,
the houses around us were intact.
It
was around six in the morning, and I decided to head back to bed and get some
more sleep. At about six-fifteen the phone rang. I picked it up and was about
to say "hello" when I heard my dad's voice on another extension.
"Hello?"
"Hi Mr. Lyons, it's Don." I was tired, still, and just sat there listening.
After hearing the news from Alan the night before, I wasn't in the best of moods
to talk. Plus, it was about six-fifteen, and I'm really not a morning person.
"Don, how are you? Did y'all have any storm damage?" Dad asked.
"Well," he said, "the top of a tree crashed into our house, on top of my
bedroom, and there's a huge branch that came down over my bed."
Now I was awake. "Don?" I said.
"Hey Paul," he said.
"Well were you hurt?" Dad asked.
"No, I'm okay, it was just a bit freaky, that's all. We have a tree laying
across part of our house, though."
"Are your parents okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, they're okay. We're all okay, just a little shaken up. How's it goin'
over there?"
"Paul, I'm gonna hang up now. Bye, Don."
"G'bye
Mr. Lyons," Don said.
"Glad y'all are okay," Dad said, and hung up.
"Dude, are you okay?" I asked him again.
"Shit, Paul, this is so goddamn freaky," he said with excitement in his voice.
"I'm on my way over," I said.
"Dude, you don't have--"
"I'm on my way over," I repeated.
"
'Kay. See ya in a few."
I
threw on some shorts and a t-shirt, then ran down the stairs. "I'm going to
Don's," I hollered, grabbing my keys and heading out the door. I think my
parents knew not to say anything to try and stop me.
I
pulled out of our neighborhood and onto the main road, but I only made it a
couple of hundred yards before I had to stop and turn around. One of the dozens
of pine trees that grew in the median of the road had come crashing down in the
high winds, and blocked all northbound traffic. I had to make a u-turn in the
middle of the road and head south in the northbound lanes. Thankfully it was
still morning, and the only people out were people on foot who'd come out of
their apartments behind our house to check out the damage. I zoomed back
through my neighborhood and got to the next northbound street. As I came around
a curve I saw, too late, that several of the power lines were down across the
road. I slammed on my brakes and skidded to a stop. Making another u-turn, I
had to drive down to Rockbridge Road, and then head east on Memorial Drive
before I could get to the main road that took me to Don's, and Alan's,
neighborhood. That's when I saw all of the destruction.
Memorial Drive, itself, looked like a war zone. The sides of the road were
littered with power lines here and there, and many, if not most, of the signs
along the side of the road were just...gone. My father's turn-around point was
at Memorial Drive, and he was damn lucky he wasn't killed by a flying sign. My
heart sank as I headed east, through dead traffic signals, looking at the
disastrous mess. All of the places where I used to hang out during high school
were damaged in some way: some minor damage, some major.
I
was finally able to make it to the road where Don's subdivision was, and headed
north on it from Memorial. There were lots of pine trees down along the
roadside, and several houses had debris and landscaping tossed around. I
finally got to his neighborhood and turned in, but had to immediately stop. A
telephone pole had been snapped in half and was lying across the main entrance.
I could've turned around and gotten in through the rear entrance, but his house
was closer to this street. I parked my car and, skirting the edge of the wires,
bolted towards Don's house.
A
light rain had begun again as I ran through another war zone. The worst part of
the storm had wrenched its way through this part of the city. The streets were
almost unrecognizable, as easily, half of the fifty- and sixty-foot tall pine
trees had been snapped in half; some landed on houses, others littered about the
streets like pick up sticks. Even though it was a year and a half since I'd had
my lung surgery, I'd never really gotten it back into shape, and I was barely
breathing as I rounded the corner onto the street where the Keller's house was.
Again, I couldn't believe my eyes.
What was once an immaculately kept yard looked like Bosnia. Much of the mature
shrubbery had been torn up and relocated...somewhere else. A tree was down next
to his house, but most noticible was the tree that was laying across the roof of
the house, from the back yard. How the weight of that thing didn't crush that
portion of the house was beyond me, but it was so long that it stretched and
hung out over the street.
I
ran up to the porch and opened the front door, stepped inside, and collapsed on
the stairs. I couldn't get a breath. My lungs just weren't operating normally,
and I felt like I had asthma. Don came over to me, "Paul, are you okay?"
I
smiled a bit and held my hand up, gesturing to give me a second. Finally, after
I'd had a minute or two to calm down, my breathing returned to normal. "I'm
fine, now," I said. His parents had gone out in the backyard to inspect the
damage again. The power was still out and there was no word as to when it might
return to normal. "You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, man, I'm fine. It's you I'm not so sure about."
"Trust me, I'm fine. Show me your room," I told him.
We
headed up the rest of the stairs and my eyes widened when I turned into his
room. He'd long since gotten rid of the twin bed and now had a queen size water
bed. There was about a three foot jagged gash cut into the ceiling and the
branch of a pine tree, about twenty four inches long, was poised right over the
middle of his bed. I turned and looked at Don.
He
read my mind. "Tell me about it," he said.
"What the fuck happened?"
"I
came home late, around three-thirty, so I was dead tired and never really heard
the storm. Next thing I knew, my bed was shaking and I heard thunder...well,
you wouldn't believe what it was like. It was constant, so much that you could
barely hear the wind howling."
"Shit," I muttered.
"Yeah. And you could hear the pine trees smacking against each other, and then
I heard the freight train sound." Growing up in the South, or spending most of
my life in it, people were all too familiar with the tell-tale sounds of a
tornado. "It was like those trains that run alongside Ponce, only it sounded
like it was in my backyard."
"Shit," I said again.
"All of a sudden," he went on, "I heard this tremendous crash, and I just dove
off the bed. Then I heard water pouring into the room," he pointed up at the
tree branch.
"Dude, you are so lucky you're not dead," I said, not believing how crazy all of
this was.
"Tell me about it," he said, leading me from the room and back downstairs.
"What shook your bed?"
"We're thinking that when the tree that's laying on the house now fell, it
must've shaken the house."
"Goddamn," I muttered.
"Yeah. Come check this out," he said, and I followed him into the backyard. It
was a total disaster area. What was once well-shaded was now almost completely
open to the sunlight, or at least the daylight. The tree that was laying on the
house and over the street used to be fully rooted in the ground about four feet
from the back of the house. There were two neighboring trees which had
collapsed, and dominoed into some of those that once stood proudly in Don's
backyard.
"That tree," he pointed to the one that was above his bedroom, "actually used to
be over there," and he pointed at another neighbor's yard. "You can see how it
snapped mid-height and fell into our house, only on the way down it must've
gotten struck by lightning and broke off again." He was right. You could see
the burn marks from the lightning that had struck it in mid flight. What was
left of the top of the tree was wedged between the Kellers’ chimney and the roof
above Don's room.
I
rubbed my face with one hand. "Shit, man. You are so fuckin' lucky."
"Lyons, you scared the piss out of me." Don and I turned to see Alan walking
into the yard.
"Alan?" I said.
He
stepped over and around the pine boughs that littered the yard. "Christ,
Keller, you really gotta fire your landscaper," Alan said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"This," he said, gesturing around us.
"No, dope, I mean about scaring the piss out of you."
"I'd heard what happened over here and was walking over when I saw your car at
the entrance. With all of the downed power lines and trees, I thought that one
had landed on you." He clapped me on the back. My heart was still a bit sore
from the night before, but I forced myself to ignore it.
"No, man, Don called my house this morning to see if we were okay, and he
mentioned this," I pointed to the tree on the house.
Making light of the situation, Alan said, "Oh, and you just rushed right over.
You're such a good friend," and he playfully put his arm around my shoulder and
jostled me back and forth. I cut my eyes at him and he dropped his arm. I
could tell this was awkward for him, too. The three of us stood there talking
for a while, and I told them what happened to my dad. They were both glad that
he wasn't hurt and agreed that he was equally lucky, especially once I'd
described to them the condition that Memorial Drive was now in.
I
needed to go home, so I started to head out through the house. Don stayed
behind with his parents, and Alan followed me out. It was raining on and off
all morning, and as we left Don's house it was sprinkling again. By now I was
pretty wet, and Alan was coming in at a close second.
"You okay, Paul?" Alan asked.
"Yeah," I tried to sound reassuring.
"I
mean...about our conversation last night."
"I
know what you're talking about, Alan. And...I guess I'll have to be okay. What
other choice do I have?"
Alan half grinned, but you could see sadness in his eyes. Then he nodded
towards Don's house. "How 'bout him?"
I
looked at him for a second, the water rolling down my neck and into my
now-soaked shirt. "There is no 'him' Alan."
He
smiled, still a bit sad. Then he shook his head a bit. "He's got you, ya
know." Then Alan turned to walk off.
"No. Alan. He doesn't have me. Remember," I said, recalling our conversation
in the hospital, "there's nothin' better, once you've had the best." Now the
tears had started to flow, but they were hidden by the rain on my face. I
thought I'd feel less pain if Alan had shot me in the head.
He
stopped and turned towards me. "Then he's yours for the taking. It's so
friggin' obvious. He may not have you, but he's got it for you. Why don't you
just give 'im what he wants, Paul." He turned away again to leave, and it
started raining harder.
"Because, people don't always get what they want! That's a lesson I've learned,
and if you're right in what you're saying, he can learn it too!"
Alan stopped walking and shook his head, his back still facing me. I slowly
walked up to him, the two of us now completely drenched in the falling rain.
"Alan--"
"Paul," he turned, "I wish I could change things. But I can't. Man, this is
killing me--"
"Not like it's killing me! You've got someone. Shit, fuck that, dude,
someone's got you. Don't you get that? Can't you get what I'm tellin'
ya? I understand that you have somebody else, but I don't have to like it. And
what if Don did have it for me? So what? That doesn't mean that I've got it
for him. It's you I want. You've gone on. I've been busy. But you know
me--poor me. Life sucks. But I'll handle it. I'll get over it." I was
starting to sound bitter, and I realized it. I could see the hurt in his eyes
when I said that. "I'll have to handle it, because if I can't....being just
your friend will be impossible. Just...let me get through this. I have to do
it...alone. But trust me, I'll get over the hurt, yeah. And it'll be worth it,
for your friendship. I told you once, I'd rather die than not have you as a
friend. But you gotta let me get hurt, be hurt, and cope with it, 'kay?"
The rain was pouring down now, but neither one of us cared. I smiled at him.
"You have a place right here," and I tapped my heart, then he smiled a bit. "I
just gotta shift it around, in there. But you'll always be right here, man." I
was starting to feel really emotional, and felt trapped. "But don't get me goin'
on that now, " I laughed. "I have to...wrap my brain around the fact that
you're seeing someone else. I promise you, I'll be okay.
We'll be okay. I'm....just still in a
bit of shock," I grinned, sadly. I reached out to do our hand gesture thing.
He finished it with me and smiled. "I'll see you around Alan. Have a safe trip
back to Athens." I turned to walk off. I was shivering, it was so damn cold in
the rain.
"Paul."
I
turned back, and raised my eyebrows at him.
"I
really do love you," he said low, but I just heard him over the sound of the
rain falling.
I
grinned and nodded back at him. "I know. Love you to, man." We stood there
for another second or two, then I said, "I'd offer you a lift, but..." and I
gestured to the telephone pole in the road blocking my car.
"It's okay. I think I can find my way back," he grinned.
I
walked towards my car, then said, "Hey Alan," and turned back. He hadn't left
his spot and was still watching me. "You...." I hesitated. "Just know that you
can always find your way back." God, I'd hoped that he knew what I was saying,
that I'd always be there for him, in whatever capacity he wanted.
He
nodded and smiled. I was too far away to read his eyes. "I know. I'm fuckin'
lucky, that way."
Yeah. He knew what I was saying.