The Boyfriend Season and Other Stories

Run Like a Girl-2

The double shot of whiskey went down smooth. A smile surfaced on the strange man’s face thereafter. “Let the game begin, shall we?”

“Yes,” is all I could share.

He carried a Notepad with him from room to room and kept punching the screen with a few fingertips. “I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

“Hit me. Go for it. I’ve been expecting questions.”

“How old was Jaye when he passed?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“Not that I was aware of.”

“Any children?”

“He was queer. I don’t think that was ever a concern.”

“How did the two of you meet?”

“You’re the medium and psychic, right? Shouldn’t you already know the answers to these questions?”

We were inside the bathroom facing each other. He smiled and replied, “I do know the answers. I just wanted to see how accurate my abilities are today.”

I was strangely attracted to him and asked, “How did Jaye and I meet?”

“I sense coffee with too much sugar. Coffee beans. Many chairs and a table. A blueberry muffin, which I think you shared.”

“Close enough,” I said, feeling numb and confused within my chest for a very peculiar and misunderstood reason. “We met at The Coffee Field. He always put too much sugar in his coffee, which I thought disgusting. And we almost shared a blueberry muffin, but it rolled off my plate and ended up on the floor. We threw it away.”

“I’m good,” he said.

“And a bit arrogant.”

He winked at me, smiled again, and replied, “Someone’s gotta be.”

* * * *

Instructions: sage the apartment, welcome a positive spirit, walk from room to room, don’t cry, guys should never cry.

“No bad spirits…No bad spirits,” Liam said, working.

* * * *

Inside the living room Liam said, “You have four very close friends.”

I rattled off their names one by one.

“Are they in the woods this weekend?”

“Again, you’re good. They’ll be back in Porter on Monday.”

He stood over a battered reading chair with wide arms. He closed his eyes, touched the chair with his left hand, and asked, “Does one of the friends like you?”

“Z does. Or I think he does.”

“He does like you. A lot. You tend to ignore him.”

“I really don’t feel the same way for him.”

“He doesn’t get that,” he confessed, opening his eyes.

“But he should.”

Liam sat down in the chair, crossed his legs, and said, “Jaye used to write in this chair. Short things.”

“Lyrics. He was a song writer.”

“I knew that,” he said, and closed his eyes again. “He’s not here right now, but he does come and go.”

“You have to try his private bedroom and feel what you can. I’ve already told you about the radio and how it sporadically plays Lady Gaga songs.”

“Lead the way, young man.”

I did, gladly.

* * * *

Interruption: My cell phone beeped. Someone was texting me. Maybe Z had service in the woods and was writing to tell me that they were all having the time of their lives, that I was missing some great fun. I fetched the cell phone from my hip as Liam headed to Jaye’s bedroom. Then I pressed two buttons on the phone and saw that the text was blank. Nothing was sent. No one was trying to reach me.

Liam told me to pass my phone to him, which I did. He fingered it and passed it back to me. “Jaye was trying to reach you.”

Blood stopped flowing through my veins. My stomach felt immediately upset. I became dizzy.

* * * *

Liam said, “You look pale. Do you want to sit down?”

“Yes. Inside the bedroom.”

We walked to Jaye’s bedroom and I sat on the corner of the bed. He walked around me, pacing from one side of the bed to the other. He said, “It’s very blue in here.”

“Blue was Jaye’s favorite color.”

“I mean sad. Not the color of blue.” He stood next to the radio. He placed his Notepad on the bed behind me and picked up the radio with both hands. He studied its dials, buttons, and red and green LCD lights.

“Why is it sad?” I felt relaxed on the corner of the bed, held a right palm up to my chest, and felt my heart as its beats slowed down.

“He knows you’re sad…and he says you need to get over it.”

“It’s not that easy to get over. I love him.”

“He knows that, but he still wants you to get over him. He’s happy where he’s at.”

“Good for him. Tell him I’m miserable without him here.”

Liam lets out an exhausted tone. “He knows that. He won’t leave until you let him leave.”

“To go where?”

“Heaven. Somewhere special. He’s not really sure, but it’s nice there and he knows it. He’s not afraid of it.”

“Tell him to stop playing the radio.”

“He’s laughing at you.”

“Tell him I can only handle Lady Gaga in small doses.”

“He knows this.”

“So he’s teasing me, right?”

“Jaye wants you to move on. Close this door and open a new one. He approves of you starting a new relationship. He’ll always be with you.”

I bowed my head and held back tears.

“The two of you used to cuddle together in here.”

“We did…And other things.”

“He wants you to know that he enjoyed those times with you. They meant a lot to him.”

“Jaye was always quite frisky.”

Liam rubbed his upper lip with an index finger and said, “He’s laughing at that. He says he had a boner in your presence like all the time.”

“That was Jaye. Horny at every moment of the day.” Tears finally fell out of my eyes and rolled down and over my cheeks. I felt weak on the edge of the bed, unsteady, and under his spell. My entire body felt as if it were going to collapse to the bedroom floor.

“There’s a journal in here you read.”

I nodded my head. “It’s a book of lyrics.”

“He watches you read it.”

“I didn’t know that. Sometimes I feel him over my shoulder. Not all the time, though.”

“He’s laughing again. He says he was sneaky.”

Again, I nodded my head.

“He doesn’t like how you’ve alienated yourself from the rest of the world. Your friends went camping and you didn’t even go with them this weekend. Jaye wants you to know that you need to get out of the apartment and do some things. He says you’re far too blue…or sad.”

I sighed heavily, drained and sobbing.

“He likes it when you cry.”

“He always did. I never understood why.”

“He says because you had a heart. You cared.”

“And I care now.”

“Yes, he knows that.”

A warm wind stirred within the room; the windows weren’t even open. The breeze twisted through my hair. My spine shivered and the tops of my ears started to burn. “He’s here. I can feel him.”

“He still loves you. He will always love you.”

* * * *

Liam left the apartment. In doing so, he said, “Call me again if you need my services.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And call me if you just want to have a drink…as friends, of course.”

“Of course.”

* * * *

I heard “Run Like A Girl” on the radio and turned it off. The radio in my Mazda turned back on all by itself. I turned it off a second time. I heard Jaye laughing between my temples, and then he said: I’m just f*****g with you. I’ll stop it. My bad.

Lorenzo Dish wanted to see me. He had some of Jaye’s items he wanted to return to me since Jaye had died. The plan was simple: we were meeting at The Coffee Field on Mifflin Street in downtown Porter. The place was packed with coffee drinkers, poets, musicians, college students, and an arrangement of city boys. Lorenzo was seated near a window at the front that overlooked Mifflin. He stood upon my arrival at the two-person table, shook my hand, decided to hug me, and whispered into my left ear, “I’m glad you came.”

“We could have met at your apartment.”

He shook his head. “My boyfriend’s sleeping. He works as a bouncer at The Find, the drag club on Sossner Street. I didn’t want to wake him with our chatter.”

“You’re so thoughtful.”

“Just like Jaye. The guy cared about everyone except for himself.”

I noticed a blue folder on the table for the first time; it sat between us, untouched.

He asked, “Do you want a coffee?”

I shook my head and said, “I drank a whole pot today. Another one will send me into the hospital with an upset stomach.”

“Jaye hated coffee.”

“And tea.”

“He liked to take care of his body. All those vitamins and protein drinks. All that weightlifting in his spare time. All those runs.”

“He did. Not that it saved his life in the end.”

In a somber but honest tone, Lorenzo shared, “We all have to die. We just don’t know when, how, where, or why, right?”

“I guess so.” I decided to bring up the folder between us, pointed at it, and inquired, “What’s that?”

“Things for you.”

“What kind of things?”

“Jaye things that I want to give you.”

“Like what?”

He pulled the folder closer to him and opened it. Papers were shuffled and he discovered a standard envelope. He passed the envelope to me and said, “Royalties for a song Jaye wrote.”

I looked at the check, which was substantial. The song was called “Labor Day Teenager.” “When did he write it?”

“A few months before he passed. He signed the contract a week before he died.”

I didn’t even know if I could get it cashed, not that I really wanted to since it reminded me of him so much. “Thanks for being so honest,” I told Lorenzo. “You could have taken it. I’m sure someone would have cashed it for you in this city.”

“It has nothing to do with honesty. Jaye wouldn’t have wanted that.”

His comment rolled throughout my tight core and made me feel warm. A smile spread across my face and I shared, “You’re right. He wouldn’t have wanted you to do that.”

* * * *

Z and I went running through Mandon Park. It was sprinkling out but neither of us seemed to mind. Between huffs, he said, “Jaye went camping with us. I think he had a good time. I saw him a few times.”

“He liked to camp.”

“His soul was like a hardcore lumberjack’s.”

I laughed at that, enjoying Z’s humor. “I was always afraid he would have too much to drink and fall in the fire.”

“Nope. He had his s**t together. Jaye always knew what he was doing.”

I told him about Liam’s visit to the apartment and the fresh news from Lorenzo.

“Jaye lives,” he said.

“He does in ways.” We crossed the Mandon River, which was high and brown. How did fish and other creatures live in such muck? Why did we drink that s**t?

“You have to get rid of his stereo. Maybe you don’t want to hear this. Maybe you do. But I think it’s a good idea.” Z was at my right side, huffing. Our run slowed to a cyclic jog. He had sweat around his eyes, or rain, or even tears; I really wasn’t sure.

“You’ll get rid of it for me, right?”

“I think we should bury it behind the apartment building.”

“Next to the vineyard. Jaye liked to write there,” I said.

“When do you want me to do this?”

“When do you want to do it?”

“This evening. Near dusk. Even if it’s raining.”

“Jaye liked the rain,” I said.

“He did, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” is all I could say, preventing tears from falling out of my eyes.

* * * *

Process: to say good-bye to Jaye; to end something that I had adored and cherished and loved for years; to let a new life begin; to unfold things and release them; to close one door and open a second one; to…

* * * *

Cane, Bill, Z, and Marty were all present that evening. Each of them helped dig the hole next to the grape vineyard behind the apartment building. The five of us stood around the hole as if we practicing a strange religious séance.

It was raining out. The evening’s sky was a blue-grey hue that was melancholic and ominous. Jaye would have loved it. At some point during our backyard adventure the raindrops pelted our shoulders and faces, but none of us really cared because Jaye wouldn’t have cared.

I held the Sony Alpha NEX radio and stood next to Z.

Z pointed to the grave and said, “Place it in the hole.”

“Is it deep enough?” I asked.

Cane said, “I think it is. It’s almost two square-feet.”

I leaned over and gently placed the radio inside the hole. Then I stood.

Bill and Marty covered the hole.

Z said, “We should say a prayer.”

“I really don’t think that’s necessary,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Why not?” Z asked.

“Let it be what it is. No prayers. Jaye wasn’t the praying kind.”

Cane said, “We should sing ‘Run Like a Girl’. What do you say?”

All of us agreed.

So we sang:

“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.”

* * * *

Some of the tenants in the apartment building looked down at us but we didn’t give a flying f**k. Our voices carried through the neighborhood, into the evening, and deep into the city.

The police weren’t called.

No one told us to shut the f**k up.

We sang loud, strong, and proud, as any friend would have.

Maybe it was then that I realized singing was like praying.

* * * *

Properties of silence: Lady Gaga had vanished from the apartment; the bedroom where Jaye wrote his lyrics was quiet and still; the feeling of Jaye’s presence seemed to vanish and was no longer within my vicinity or grasp.

When did I clean out his room? Honestly, I can’t remember. I think it was a week after we buried his radio. Maybe a few days longer than a week. Now, the room sat empty, waiting for a tenant…foreign exchange student…med student…musician…lyricist…someone.

* * * *

“Labor Day Teenager” went to number one on the Billboard list. Lorenzo sent me loads of money. In return, I sent him a few journals of Jaye’s lyrics.

How can something live after it dies?

Music and songs on the radio tell that story, don’t they?

* * * *

Rebirth: Seven months later. I found Liam Wilds’ phone number and dialed it by using my cell phone. The line rang once, twice, three times. And just before I was about to leave a message, he picked up. “Brian?”

“It’s me. And you remember me.”

“I do remember you. How are you?”

“Thirsty,” I said, and chatted with him for the next half hour, beginning something between us.