The Boyfriend Season and Other Stories

Run Like a Girl That identifiable skin over Jaye Cooper’s bones, I knew it, studied it, cared for it, and loved it. The way he flaunted his muscles in it, sang in it, drank in it, and was funny and whimsical and wise and caring and faithful and perfect in it—always. I missed him. But who really didn’t in my circle of friends? The way he laughed or smelled like grass—the kind we used to smoke together, the stuff we grew out in the vineyard, next to the place where Mrs. Watermaker’s poodle took a s**t—or the way he spread peanut butter on a slice of toast. Lost skin. Gone. How easy it was for the epidermis of Jaye’s life to vanish. One snap and poof!…he had simply vanished. And all of us around him—Cane, Bill, Z, and Marty—we really didn’t know that he was going to disappear so quickly. Running Jaye. Huffing and puffing Jaye. Shame on us. For shame. * * * * Lady Gaga played in Jaye’s room inside the apartment on Melbourne Way. Sometimes the radio just came on by itself. And I felt/knew/believed that he was in there, listening to “Edge of Glory” or “Poker Face” or… “Jaye, you’re here.” I fingered the Sony Alpha NEX radio and turned it off. “Where the f**k are you, man? We have things to do together. Where did you run off to?” He turned the radio back on. Or something did. Or someone. I turned it off. The fucker turned it back on. Typical Jaye. Hellraiser. Selfish again. I loved him because he was difficult. “You win. Congratulations. I’m going to the gym to sweat. You want to come with me? You’re looking a little flabby. You should come.” Nothing answered. No one answered. Again, it was just me. Simple me. Lost. My therapist loved my grieving and made a fortune from me. Cunt. b***h. w***e. I f*****g hated her, and yet she was helping me. * * * * “Don’t go in there!” I snapped at Z. He needed a ball cap and was about to enter Jaye’s bedroom, which was off limits. No one was allowed in there. No trespassers. The bedroom was a shrine…just for my use. An emotional and biochemical war zone. Contamination would have occurred had any of them—Z, Cane, Bill, or Marty—entered that private and abandoned bedroom. Any of them could have strayed to wherever they wanted to in the small apartment, but not in there. Never. I wouldn’t have it. Z looked at me and copped an attitude. “Really?” He had wanted me to fall for his almost-amber eyes a while ago, before I met Jaye at The Coffee Field, but I never did. Z was simply a friend and always would be, nothing more, of course. Never would I sleep with him, but I knew he wanted to sleep with me. “Really,” I said, staring his Bradley Cooper looks down. “Seriously?” “Yes, seriously.” “What does your therapist say about this?” “f**k my therapist, Z. Listen to me and don’t go in there.” He stormed out of the apartment, but he shouldn’t have. And all of those fuckers followed him like a train. I was left with the cat, Vixen. She was on the center of the sunroom table again, cleaning herself. Jaye flipped out about that, shooing her away, scolding her. And the f*****g cat, a short-haired American feline, just happened to give him a look that clearly said: Seriously. Are you talking to me? I don’t think so. f**k you. * * * * Z called my cell phone later that night. A storm had seized the city: thunder, lightning, and heavy wind. He said, “I overreacted. Shame on me. I need to buy you breakfast or something. You love breakfast, right?” “Jaye made me breakfast all the time.” “Eggs, right?” “And toast.” “I can handle that. You name the place, Brian. I’ll buy you breakfast.” “Only if Cane, Bill, and Marty can go with us. I need you guys around me. You all are my moat. It’s almost a year now and I’ve been thinking about Jaye a lot.” “I can arrange that.” He sounded confident, not a waver in his voice. “I’ll let you know.” “Okay.” “Okay.” * * * * I found Jay’s diary of lyrics again. He used to write music all the time, but he never performed any. I flipped a random page open and fingered the words that read: “But somebody has to listen. Somebody…today. Or we’re all just going to go away. And no one wants to die. No one, man. So hold your chin up. Hold it high. What happens to those who don’t cry?” * * * * Vixen twirled around my legs again, missing Jaye. She wasn’t my cat. She didn’t own me like she owned Jaye. She wasn’t about to replace him with me. Cunt. b***h. w***e. The feline didn’t play that game, and both of us knew it. I cried. When didn’t I cry? Who was going to hold my chin up because that’s all I did? No one. None of my friends. And none of Jaye’s friends. * * * * There were other lyrics I read: “Go away and don’t look back. When the underside of love bites you. When you feel a stampede. You can run like a girl. Because you’re given permission. And who doesn’t want permission? So run as far as you can. Away from here. Blinded by the day’s light. Somewhere in the blurred distance.” * * * * Vixen mewed. Vixen cleaned herself. Vixen wanted to sing one of Jaye’s songs, but she was a f*****g cat, and I knew cats couldn’t sing. Fuck me. Fuck the world. Now I knew what pain was. Really. Seriously. * * * * Instructions: stand still and try not to breathe; take in the darkness within the apartment; consume it all; use your five senses, man. If something catches fire, would I run? Would I? I wasn’t really sure. But if I did run, I knew I could run like a girl. Honestly. * * * * As promised, Z took me to breakfast. I had eggs and toast. And he didn’t even say anything to me when I ordered a blueberry pancake with extra butter. That was Jaye’s favorite for breakfast, wasn’t it? I think. No, I know. No one joined us for breakfast. Not Cane, Bill, or Marty. Z said they were all suffering from hangovers. “We had a celebration of sorts.” “What kind of celebration?” I shouldn’t have asked. Shame on me. What the f**k was I thinking? “Jaye’s first escape from death.” “The head-bashing, right?” “That be it.” Z pointed his fork at me and said, “We tried to call you. We wanted you there, but you bogarted us.” “I hate when you use that word incorrectly.” “Whatever. You know what I mean.” I didn’t bogart them, although most of the time I did. I took thirty milligrams of cyclobenzaprine and was knocked out cold in twenty minutes. Then I visited a place called La-La Land, far away from my Cane, Bill, Marty, and Z. Nothing and no one was going to wake me up. Z didn’t know that I had sometimes taken the drug. None of my friends did. It was none of their business. But a guy who sees a shrink twice a week has secrets, right? Isn’t it mandatory? “Talk to me about Jaye,” he said. “You’re not my therapist.” “Anyone can be a shrink.” “You’re wrong. That’s incorrect. You’re not sensitive.” “I am sensitive, particularly about you.” “You care about my c**k. I know you want it in your mouth or up your ass.” “That’s beside the point and you know it.” But did I? Did I? * * * * They had celebrated Jaye’s survival from a brutal car accident three years ago. It happened near Lake Erie in West End on Bettenheim Road. Jaye wasn’t drinking. The other driver was. An S-curve weaved between the limestone mountains. It was dusk: purple-red out, no wind, and very little light in the valley. Jaye was driving to my apartment. We were supposed to go to the county fair. We never made it. He kept saying he wanted to share a fountain cake with me: hot oil, sweet dough, and powdered sugar. We were going to eat one there and bring one back to our apartment. The other driver hit him head-on. Jaye flew through the windshield and cracked his head open, broke his left leg, had three ribs snap in half, and two black eyes. He lived. He wasn’t supposed to, but he did. He did. He did. And then he wrote, “Run Like a Girl.” * * * * Viewpoint: Z knew that I had fallen in love with Jaye before I did. He had a mental list of things Jaye and I were going to accomplish together: You’ll get married. You’ll live by the lake. You’ll adopt a Chinese boy. You’ll be the modern fairy tale between two princes. Jaye will write a book of poetry. You’ll be wealthy. You’ll play Happy Ever After. It didn’t happen Z’s way. Part of it did, but not all of it. Maybe he was just as stunned as I was. Maybe not. * * * * “Jaye, are you in here?” I asked, sitting on the edge of his made bed. “Tell me if you’re in here, man. I want to know.” Music was playing again inside his room. Always Lady Gaga. “Government Hooker” that time. The volume was low, almost inaudible, but still on. Nothing else ever happened in his bedroom. Nothing was ever missing. There were no movements. No breathing. No noise except for the radio in the corner. It was the temple of the damned. I knew that. I felt it. It was as if Jaye was locked between my current world and a certain Hereafter one. The music was solace inside the temple. A means of his comfort. Something. “Jaye, can you hear me?” Silence. Stillness. Something. “I’m here, babe. Can you talk to me?” Silence. Stillness. Something. “You haven’t left me yet, have you?” Silence. Stillness. Something.” The song changed from “Government Hooker” to “You and I.” I jumped a little on the edge of the bed: startled, concerned, alert. “Is that you, Jaye?” Silence. Stillness. Something. * * * * The guys went camping for a weekend, leaving me alone in Porter, next to Lake Erie. Of course I was invited, but I didn’t want to go. They went southeast where the cellular reception was horrible and they couldn’t take or make any calls. They packed their sleeping bags, tents, kerosene lanterns, and fishing rods. It was a three-day trip. They were to come back on Monday. Sometime in the afternoon. * * * * The Grieving Method: Would it ever end? The cunt/b***h/w***e therapist told me that the second year without Jaye was going to be much more worse than the first year. What the f**k? How was I going to handle that? Who in their right mind would? * * * * I found Jaye’s journal of lyrics and sat for hours reading it. Then I found my own journal and crafted incomplete sentences and thoughts regarding the day he died: September 5: I had a cold and didn’t want to go out. Tissues were everywhere. Snot was hanging from my nose. My nose wouldn’t stop running. Jaye left me in the apartment by myself. He said he had a few errands to run. He wanted to pick up some cold medicine and more tissues for me. He wasn’t going to be longer than an hour. He stopped to visit one of his buddies, a clean-cut Italian beefcake named Lorenzo. A DJ at The Pink Den, an uber-alternative bar on Rowmonk Street. They knew each other since their childhoods. Lorenzo and Jaye wrote a song called “Run Like a Girl” and it hit the top-ten on the Billboard chart. Jaye was proud of himself, and I had never seen him happier. Something happened at The Pink Den. An explosion of sorts. Something to do with a gas leak on the second floor. Boom! Lorenzo lived. Jaye didn’t. Life changes when you least expect it, doesn’t it? Jaye wrote a song called “The Roof Falls In.” Now I know what it means. * * * * Liam Wilds came into my life while my bro-pack was camping. The twenty-something man was dressed in black jeans, black boots, a black tee, and sported black eyes. Onyx from head to toe. He was handsome all the way with a splash of cute: six-two frame, 190 pounds, muscular in all the right areas, flecks of purple in his black eyes, no facial hair, broad shoulders, and tapered waist. I hired him two weeks before his arrival day. Although it wasn’t sunny out but he wore sunglasses, which he removed once he was in the apartment. “It’s a beautiful cat,” he said about Vixen, who was napping on the windowsill. “It was Jaye’s cat.” “You belong to her now.” “The sunglasses. Are you a vampire or something?” I asked, joking. He shook his head. “Sensitive eyes. Degenerate something-or-other.” “I’m sorry. Randomly I put my foot in my mouth. Shame on me.” He was thirsty and I offered him a glass of water. “Could I have something stronger, please? A double shot of whiskey will do.” “Are you an alcoholic?” Again, I was joking. He shook his head. “I work better with a strong beverage.” “My bad again.” “Not to worry.”