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.