Sex in the Sky

“Just kill me and get it over with,” I thought as the pounding echoed again. I blinked a couple times, rousing myself awake enough to realize that the pounding was not in my head. I looked at the clock, thinking, “Who the fuck pounds on a man’s door at one-thirty in the morning?”

I dragged my ass out of bed and shuffled down the hall toward the front door. Staggering, I hopped to my left as a sharp pain jolted up my leg. “Ow! Shit!” I hobbled to the couch, propping myself against the arm as I grabbed my big toe. “Damn bar chairs!” It was my own damn fault. I should have turned on the light.

The pounding became a bit erratic.

“Yeah, yeah! I’m coming,” I yelled, cross the rest of the living room far more awake than I wanted to be at this hour. I yanked open the door. “What?!?”

Dave’s bloodshot, blurred, swollen eyes looked back at me from under an unruly mat of auburn hair. His breath stank of a mixture of too many alcohols. “She threw me out…”

That was the only really intelligible sentence he managed until morning. The hour between when he arrived and when he passed out on the couch was a mishmash of blubbering, tears, slurred speech, and a couple return trips of the scotch, gin and vodka he’d had earlier. I sat, listening to my best friend snore, and wondered what the hell I was going to do. “She” must have been Rebecca, his wife. The question that kept me up, waiting for Dave to sleep off the binge was, “why?”

I didn’t really get any solid answers when Dave woke up, even after the aspirin had kicked in. Dave was never very good with expressing his emotions. He was also basically clueless about anything that wasn’t “in his face obvious.” All I knew for sure was that Rebecca had informed him that it was over, was spending the weekend with her mother, and told him that his stuff had better be out of the apartment when she got back. Dave handled it like he’d handled any other emotional upheaval in his life since he turned eighteen; he got drunk.

While Dave tried to shower off the remainder of his hangover, I found Rebecca’s mother’s phone number in his cell and called. After a few moments, an unfamiliar female voice came on the line.

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Johnson? This is James Andrews. Is Rebecca there?”

There was a pause, and then she seemed to remember me. I didn’t expect her to remember who the best man was at her daughter’s wedding, but it didn’t matter. I wanted to talk to her daughter. “Oh, yes. Just a moment.”

I listened to the sound of the shower water, hoping Rebecca would get on the line before Dave got done. After a moment, she picked up the phone. “Hi, Jim.”

“Uhm… I’ve got a hung over man in my shower who seems to think his marriage is over. Could you clarify this for me?”

“Sure.”

Ten minutes later, I knew more intimate details of their married life, or lack there of, than I’d ever wanted to know. I heard the shower turn off, and I interrupted Rebecca in mid-rant about Dave’s lack of feelings and neglect. “Okay, I get the picture. What stuff do you call ‘his’?”

“The clothes, his Xbox, and his school stuff. I’ll worry about who get’s what of the furniture when I get back.”

“Yeah, okay,” I grumbled. God she was a bitch. “Thanks.” I hung up. Rebecca hadn’t always been a bitch, though I’d never liked her. It wasn’t her fault we never clicked. I think, unlike Dave, she knew that I was in the closet, and hopelessly in love with my best friend. There was an unspoken kind of adversarial truce between us from the day Dave proposed to her: he belonged to her, but I could be his friend as long as I kept out of their marriage. I did, and stayed in the closet too. At twenty-eight, I was a gay virgin with no prospects for changing that status.

Dave didn’t say much on the way to the apartment. I was lucky to get some concrete indication as to what stuff was his and what wasn’t as we boxed up or bagged up his clothes, his video system, some of his books, and such. I thought about Rebecca’s rant earlier that day, and about Dave, and decided that it was still none of my business. That didn’t stop me from looking at what I knew, and coming to my own conclusions. He loved her, or at least had when they got married; but Rebecca was a high-maintenance person, and Dave had always been a “hands off” guy. My guess was he expected a marriage to be sort of like rooming with someone where you shared the same bed and had sex. I didn’t know; I was likely never to find out, and I really didn’t care. I never thought they were right for each other anyway.

Suffice it to say, I offered him temporary residence on the sofa bed in the spare room. It made using my computer problematic, but I solved that by bringing home my laptop from work and setting up on the bar. Wireless routers made it easy to stay connected. He spent the week in a funk, but then he did the “Dave thing”; he got practical. I arrived home from work on Friday to see him boxing and labeling his stuff.

“Need help,” I asked as I hung my coat on the hook near the door.

“Nah,” he replied, taping closed a box of books. “Can I use your computer to hunt for a new apartment?”

“Sure,” I answered as I patted my briefcase. “I’ve got the laptop for things I need. Just let me transfer a few files and the desktop is yours.”

He smiled at me for a moment, and then turned back to his repacking. “Thanks.”

That was it; discussion over. I could see how that would turn off Rebecca; hell, almost any woman was my guess. Most women wanted to discuss things, share in the decision making process, and pay attention to the details. It was a “together thing” and showed that they cared. Guys like Dave didn’t work that way. Ask the question, get the answer, and move on; that was his modus operandi. Dave wasn’t compatible with “let’s discuss everything.”

Dave started looking for a place to stay that night. His needs were simple: a comfortable place, one bedroom, in town, with resident parking, and not in a questionable neighborhood. He also needed it to be priced such that he didn’t require a roommate.

I just left the computer to him; it wasn’t like I had anything important to do on it anyway. I worked on computers all day, so I really found no enjoyment in them at home; all I ever used mine for was to surf porn and email. I didn’t even enjoy instant messaging.

Dave went to see a few places during the weekend and the following week. I met him at the gym after he’d visited the latest place on Thursday.

“How’s it going,” I asked as I pulled on my sweatpants.

“There are a few I like,” Dave commented as he pulled his workout clothes out of his bag, “But none of the places I can afford have anything available until March.”

“That’s okay. You can stay as long as you need, Dave.” I pulled on my sweatshirt. “Really.” I smiled at him before heading for the cardio area. “I’m enjoying the company.”

“Cool, thanks.” That was it. No “me too” or “you aren’t such bad company yourself.” If I didn’t know him so well, I’d have been annoyed. But I’d caught a glimpse of the small curl of his lips as he pulled off his shirt while I left the locker room. Understanding Dave was all about subtle clues, even though he never seemed to pick up on anything that wasn’t spelled out in neon himself.

I shook my head and thought about Dave as I got onto the stair climber. He had never been a very demonstrative kind of guy. He was solid, reserved, and deeply personal. Any call for public displays of emotion shook him to the core. I’d been amazed he’d been able to make it through the wedding when he married Rebecca. I was sure the fact that he was too hung over from his bachelor’s party to even think about the wedding was the only thing that allowed him to say, “I do.” It was one of the reasons Rebecca kicked him to the curb; he wasn’t good at the whole “express your feelings” thing. It took extreme measures to get him to open up; usually requiring a lot of alcohol.

“The usual,” Dave asked as he stepped onto the machine beside me.

“Yep,” I replied, keeping my eye on the climbing rate indicator.

Neither of us were big conversationalists, and we were an unusual pair at the gym. Although we were workout partners, we seldom did any exercises together. We met in the locker room, warmed up on the stair climbers or tread mills, and that was where our joint workouts ended until the cool down. I went for cardio burn and a low weight, high repetition routine. Dave was always pumping the max he could. It didn’t seem to matter what we did, as we never achieved what we wanted. I wanted to get the roundness out of my shape and be cut like Dave; he wanted my size.

I stayed on the climber for a couple extra minutes to let Dave synch his workout to mine, and then got off the machine as he finished his warm-up. “See you for cool down,” I commented before losing myself in my routine, listening to my Ipod workout playlist.

* * * * *

Dave spent the weekend apartment hunting. It wasn’t until Monday that I realized I was of two minds about the whole thing. He’d been in the apartment only a couple of weeks, and I realized I didn’t want him to leave. Asking him to stay was ridiculous. Dave was as WASP as they came, and I had no idea what he thought of gay people. It had never been a topic of conversation, not once in fifteen years, and I was afraid to ask.

I had to beg off from our normal workout on Tuesday because of work, and I picked up Chinese for us on the way home as an apology for breaking our routine. Dave loved Chinese. I found a card when I got home. It’d been left on the kitchen table with “Jim” scrawled on the envelope. I opened the envelope and pulled out an embossed card; the simple, straightforward style said it all. “To my best friend,” was embossed on the cover. Inside was printed, “Thank you for being who you are,” and was finished off with a nearly illegible, “Dave.”

I just looked at the card, dumbfounded, for the longest time. I had no idea what inspired it. In the fifteen years we’d been friends, Dave had never bought me a card. Sure, his mom did for my birthdays and Christmas and had him sign them when we were younger, but we all knew that teen-aged guys didn’t buy cards for their friends. I was certain Rebecca had taken over that duty after they got married; his signature on my birthday and Christmas cards had been a lot cleaner back then.

I must have given him a funny look when he got back from the gym. He had taken off his sweat soaked shirt, and was swabbing down his pits as I tried to figure out what seemed off. Seeing Dave’s body was anything but new; I’d known the guy since we were thirteen. We’d been working out together for longer than he had been married. I finally realized that he’d changed his hair; he’d had the same hairstyle since we went off to college. He’d also gotten new glasses. Dave was so slow to “change” that glaciers moved faster, yet he’d made two fairly radical changes in just a twenty-four hour period of time.

He shot me a frown. “What?”

I grinned. “I’m getting used to the new look.”

His frown deepened; he didn’t buy it. “Uh huh, right.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know; you’ve been working out six days a week since you moved in. It just seems like you’re trying really hard for something you just can’t have.” Of course, I was one to talk; I’d been in love with a straight, white guy since I was sixteen. I pushed aside that thought and gestured at his ripped abs and chorded arms. “You’ve got definition that most guys would kill for and you’re always trying to put on weight and size.” I smiled. “Go with what you’ve got, man.” This was an old argument.

Dave frowned for a minute, and then shrugged. “Yeah well, I don’t have anything anyone wants anyway.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

He sighed. “Rebecca had the divorce papers sent to the office yesterday. It’s official; we’re through.” Rubbing his shirt across his chest, he headed for the shower. “I guess I’m just thinking that if I change the look, maybe I’ll change with it.”

I waited until he came out or the shower, and spent a couple moments watching his muscles move as he toweled his hair. Yeah, my biceps were nearly as big as his thighs, but every one of his skinny, tight muscles were visible when he had his arms up. He caught me looking as he finished his hair, and I swear he blushed.

Then he frowned. “What?”

“Thanks for the card.”

That, at least, rewarded me with the first smile of the day.

“Oh.” Typical Dave, he just smiled and looked for anything to change the subject away from personal stuff. “I smell Chinese.”

I supposed having a big black guy looking at you with puppy-dog eyes and a stupid smile was enough to make any straight, white guy nervous. I let it go, and went to the oven. “Yeah, I thought I could get forgiveness for skipping out on you if I got you some General Tsoo’s Chicken.”

Dave stood there, chewing on his lower lip for a moment, not looking at me. “You’re my best friend, Jim; I might get mad about something, but I’d always forgive you. You know?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. That was about as candid about anything as he’d ever been. “Hey, you alright?”

He sighed. “Yeah. Just adjusting to the idea of not being wanted.” He turned and headed back to his bedroom. “Let me put on some clothes. No one wants to look at my emaciated ass while they eat.”

I wouldn’t have minded, but he was right; his hanging around in nothing but a towel wasn’t the best of ideas. I was beginning to notice a bit too many details to be comfortable.

The card wasn’t the only weird thing that Dave did as the week wound on. I couldn’t figure it out. I knew he was having a hard time dealing with the end of his marriage, but he was beginning to really worry me.

On Thursday he gave me a serious look before heading to bed and asked, “We’re best friends, right?”

I thought that was a stupid question. “Yeah, of course we are.” What concerned me was how doubtful he looked. “What’s bothering you, Dave?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. I guess I’m just feeling a little insecure.” I wanted to give him a hug and tell him he had nothing to be insecure about, but he shrugged again after giving me another odd look and said, “Night.”

That didn’t weird me out nearly as much as when, over the weekend, he asked me, “Got a date for Valentine’s day?” It was only a week away, but the question was totally bizarre.

“Yeah,” I nodded at the door, “they’ve been beating down the door trying to get me. Can’t you tell?”

Dave shrugged. “I guess I was just wondering. You’ve never talked about your dates.” The way he looked at me made my stomach sink. “Ever.”

“Of course I have.” I was certain I’d lied about some girl at some point. I couldn’t honestly remember who, or when, but I was sure I had. “I don’t need to date; I have everything I want.” I had Dave in my home, at least temporarily, and that was what I wanted.

“Oh.” He seemed to chew on that for a while before he got up and went back to his room.

He had me spooked. Every day he seemed a little more down; that wasn’t normal for Dave. He’d always been one to have short-lived funks and then he was right back to status quo. This time, it didn’t seem like he was pulling out of it. With my concern about Dave, I completely forgot about the office Valentine’s Day party. Valentine’s Day was on Saturday, but the boss rented out his club’s banquet room for Friday night; it was kind of an anti Friday the thirteenth party. It started at seven; for the second time in two weeks I had to cancel on Dave. I didn’t like it, but it wasn’t as if he needed me there for anything more than a few words of conversation before and after the workout.

God I hated office parties, but being in middle management made it a political imperative that I attend. Fortunately, dates were optional. For shits, I bought a black tie with burgundy hearts on it for the party on my way home. I showered, put on a dark burgundy silk shirt, black pants and had a black sports coat draped over a chair in the living room. If I was going to be stuck watching my coworkers get drunk and suck face, at least I could fake the spirit of the occasion.

Dave looked at me like I was an alien when he came in from the gym, and saw me grabbing my jacket. “Where are you going?”

I realized I hadn’t told him about the party, only that I had to cancel. “Office Party; I’d forgotten about it.” I shrugged. “Don’t have anything better to do tonight.”

The hurt look on Dave’s face confused me, but I didn’t have the time to try to figure out his mood; I was already going to be late. I laughed at the random thought that I might actually meet someone, and I grinned. “Don’t wait up.” I was sure I’d be home by ten.

The party was, as predicted, a complete slosh fest. It was a good thing I wasn’t fond of alcohol. I ended up having to take four of my co-workers home. They lived all over town, so I didn’t make it back to the apartment until after one in the morning. I walked in to find Dave sitting in his briefs, looking bleary-eyed at the TV, with a mostly empty bottle of Jack on the table. The way his head moved, I knew he was smashed.

I sighed as he looked up at me, and I took off my coat. “What’re you doing, Dave?”

He sniffed at me. “Waiting up.”

That was obvious, but what I really wanted to know was why. “Yeah, I can see that.” It didn’t look like he’d been crying, but I suspected once I’d settled down some place, I’d have a wet shoulder again. “Mind if I get out of these things?”

He shook his head, and wobbled a little, so I went back to my room to change. Wet silk sucked; I was going to change into an old T and some sweats. If he threw up, nothing would be ruined. It took me a moment to realize that Dave was standing in the doorway, watching me as I changed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what? That I had an office party?” I shrugged. “I told you; I forgot.”

“No.” He wobbled a little, and looked more upset. “Why didn’t you tell me you were gay?”

I froze. I didn’t want an irrational drunk on my hands. Fuck, why hadn’t I seen that coming? I hedged. “What are you talking about, Dave? What makes you think I’m gay?”

He turned, took a couple steps to the guestroom door, and pointed. “That does.”

I pulled up my sweats and walked out to take a look. On the screen was the nifty archive; I’d spent a lot of nights using the stories there to sate the loneliness I felt. I cringed. “It’s a porn site, Dave; gay, straight and fetishes. How do you know I’m not into sheep?”

He glared angrily at me; yeah, he’d liquored up enough to unhinge the emotional doors. “I’m not stupid. I know how to look at a history file. Not to mention, the photo sites are all gay.” He walked, unsteadily, to the computer and clicked on the favorites list. “There’s this one,” click, “and this one,” click, “and this one,” click, “and this one…” He sounded angrier with each click of the mouse.

For me it was like a surreal nightmare. I hadn’t even thought about my favorites list or history file. I was so screwed. I was looking at him in horror when he turned around.

Tears were running down his face. “You keep telling me we’re best friends, and I don’t even know who you are.”

God that hurt. When Dave unhinged, his heart was on his sleeve. The pain in his voice wasn’t from my being gay; it was from my hiding it from him. I couldn’t meet the hurt in his eyes, so I looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

He practically yelled at me. “I don’t care if you’re sorry! I want to know why!” Dave seldom got loud, even when he was drunk, and his outburst caught me off guard.

“Why what? Why I’m gay?” I was getting pissed. “I don’t know, Dave. I was born this way I guess. I never told you I was -black- either. I never thought I needed to!”

He looked down. “You could have told me.”

He was such a hypocritical prick. I waved at him as my frustration built. I had no idea I’d even been frustrated until it hit me; at that point, I couldn’t stop myself. “You never tell anyone anything, Dave! Unless you’re drunk! When you do finally start talking, I can’t tell what you’re saying half the time because when you’re liquored up enough to say anything you’re slurring!”

Stan jumped up and glared daggers at him, fist reared back to strike, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST SAID THAT IN FRONT OF “THEM!”" He shouted in a rage that made us all cringe. He pointed at Kevin, jabbing the air, “You’re dead meat, mother fucker!” Then he realized that “he “had just confirmed it, so it wouldn’t do him any good to deny it now. “When Mark finds out you said that…” he sputtered. “If I don’t kill you first… You fuckin’ “stupid bitch.”"

Kevin glanced guiltily around the room at all of us and aimed his red face angrily at the filthy floor. There was silence for a moment, then Stan kinda shook himself and pointed his finger at each one of us in turn. He was clenching and unclenching his jaw and the veins in his temples were bulging. He spoke evenly, with a barely controlled quiver in his voice.

“Tell you what, mother fuckers: If I “ever “hear “ANYTHING” get back to me about this, you’re dead. And I don’t mean playlike. I mean I’ll “kill “all three of you. I don’t care who said what– you’re “all three dead.” “We all instinctively felt that he meant it literally; and all of us were reasonably sure he was capable of carrying out the threat without a second thought.

He turned to Kevin and looked at him with contempt, “Now, you want me to kick your ass in front a your friends? Or you wanna step outside an’ I’ll do it in private so you don’t look like the little fag you are?”

Kevin jerked his head up, his whole body shaking with his rage and humiliation. I watched real, undiluted hatred bubble up and pour out of him like lava, “YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF MOTHER FUCKER!” Which just “had “to wake the neighbors.

We watched in horror as they both lunged at each other in the same instant. I scrambled up the bed toward the window next to Billy to get out of the way. Matt and Billy both tried to make themselves invisible and stay out of the way as well. My high had been pretty much scared out of me, and I tried to see where my clothes were without moving enough to draw attention. I noticed neither Billy nor Matt dared to move enough to try and finish finding or putting their clothes on.

Stan and Kevin literally bounced off each other on the first lunge, with Kevin landing a fist in Stan’s gut as they met, but tripping over somebody’s clothes and his own feet, falling right back into the junk pile yet again. Stan had glanced a blow off Kevin’s jaw, and stumbled back with his calves against his own bed, rowing his arms for balance to remain standing. Matt shrunk back against the wall on the bed, holding his hands up to stop Stan’s fall if he lost his balance.

Kevin came up out of the pile of junk with an empty Bud longneck in his hand. Stan, I gauged, was just enough bigger than Kevin, that he probably won most of their fights. I figured that was why Kevin was willing to use a weapon, probably thinking Stan would back out and maybe leave us alone. At the same time, I thought maybe Kevin was really afraid Stan would start telling people, especially his brothers or parents, he was a fag; so he wanted to threaten him with real violence to stop that before it started. But then I thought of how he hadn’t seemed to care that this many people knew he was fucking me. But I guess it would be different if Stan were to say he was ‘participating’, implying or saying he reciprocated.

And of course, I had no idea how the revelation that Stan and Mark were fucking Peter was playing into all of this exactly; but it obviously was a big part of it.

He crouched with his arms spread wide, daring Stan to come after him. Stan took the dare and moved toward him confidently, eyes darting side to side to look for a weapon of his own.

Stan taunted Kevin, holding his hands out, beckoning, “Come on, pussy fag boy! Go for it!”

So Kevin reached out to the side and slammed the bottle over the metal side edge of, presumably, Stan’s stereo, denting it and breaking barely a third of the bottom end of the bottle off. He menaced Stan with the jagged weapon. Stan judged the distance and tried a very swift kick at Kevin’s hand with his steel toed work boots and missed, losing his balance and lurching into Kevin in the process.

I couldn’t decide, in that split second, whether Kevin reacted instinctively, or whether he consciously took advantage of his brother’s mistake; but he “fucking stabbed him in the stomach! ”

” ”

HE STABBED HIS BROTHER IN THE STOMACH RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF THE THREE OF US! Well, he actually just kinda held the bottleneck firmly in place and Stan fell into it– but he “could “have let it give way.

” ”

Billy screamed, jerked open the window and jumped out, naked, jeans in hand, and ran like hell into the night. I cried out and just about pissed the bed. Matt kinda yelped and curled himself up against the wall, staring at them in total shock, shaking like crazy.

” ”

Stan stopped in mid motion when the glass cut into his flesh. He stared open mouthed at Kevin. I watched his lips and cheeks twitch, eyes wide in disbelief. His face looked about like each of ours had when he threatened us, but it was shock, rather than fear.

” ”

Kevin looked stunned. He slowly looked down and saw how far it went in. Stan grabbed Kevin’s hand over the bottleneck, looking down at it, his lips moving but no sound making it out. They stood there with their legs spread in between each other’s like an incestuous Tango, Kevin’s slimy limp dick and balls draped over Stan’s jean clad thigh. They stared at the top of the king of beers label lodged in his abdomen, twitching as the muscles around it began to understand what had just happened to them.

” ”

An eerie silence filled the room and time stood still. A sinking feeling overtook me, and I could see the same on everyone else’s face as well. Nobody moved a muscle for several very long seconds, except for Stan’s silent lips.

The sheer volume of thoughts that ran through my head in that lapse of time is still amazing to me. I had this whole scenario of the history of this family, the love/hate relationships they all had, the violence that was such an everyday part of their existence. The stories I’d heard, the things I’d seen, just the way their conversations were violent. In that moment, I was surprised they hadn’t killed each other long ago.

And I surprised myself when I realized I was curious, morbidly curious, to see how Stan would act, and what he would look like, “dying.” I had no idea if the wound was life threatening or not. It was in his stomach and to his left side a little, so I didn’t think it hit any vital organs, but I didn’t know. It was definitely a massive and very serious wound.

Like me, Matt was scared shitless. He wasn’t even breathing. I don’t guess I was either, as we watched Kevin and Stan both look at their hands over the bottleneck, blood just starting to trickle out.

It would have seemed a lot different if he’d been wearing a shirt. It wouldn’t have been so “REAL”. We could SEE the flesh yield, could “HEAR” it when the glass sliced into him, could see it sink in devastatingly deep. It wasn’t just a point. It was the whole damn circumference of the jagged bottle half, and I actually wondered if the circle of flesh would come out with the bottle like a cookie cutter when they pulled it out.

The first sound heard was Stan, like a hack in his throat, then a little moan. I watched his eyes flutter then kinda roll back in his head. He brought his other hand up to Kevin’s shoulder and grasped it for stability, wobbled a little, but stayed in place for the moment. Kevin was in shock and didn’t move. Then he looked up from their hands into his brother’s face and went white as a ghost.

“I didn’t– Stan! I didn’t mean to… Oh God! Oh God!” He started hyperventilating, but didn’t move.

I heard footsteps and Darius came around the corner, asking what all the yelling was about, and saw the embedded bottle with blood trickling out and both their hands over the neck. He sprang backwards about three feet into the hallway.

He stomped his foot and put his hands over his ears as he yelled in horror, “OH FUCK DUDE! OH FUCK! WHA’D YOU DO?! OH, FUCK!”

“I didn’t mean to…” Kevin offered weakly, sounding like he was about to cry. Everyone looked at the blottleneck and Kevin made a movement like he was going to pull it out.

Darius waved his hands frantically and yelled at him, “NO! DON’T PULL IT OUT!” He glanced at Matt and pointed backwards down the hall, “Go call 911! NOW!” We had only recently gotten 911 service in our area.

Matt jerked out of his shock, bouncing in place, then crawled off the bed and slunk cautiously, fearfully around the brothers and ran down the hall butt naked, with his tee shirt half on, one arm in and his head through the neck hole. Darius stepped up to them and put one hand on Stan’s back and one hand on his chest, very gently getting him to step backwards.

“Don’t move big or fast. Step back over here and sit on the bed real fuckin’ slowly.” He guided Stan back to his bed and helped him sit as slowly and evenly as possible. As they moved away from him, Kevin’s hand stayed where it had been around the bottleneck, fingers still wrapped around empty air. Darius motioned with his head for me to help, “Come put all the pillows behind him so he can lay back a little. I was still stunned, not moving and he snapped at me, “DO IT!”

I scrambled off Kevin’s bed and frantically gathered pillows, sheets, dirty clothes, everything soft I could find to pile behind him. Kevin sank to his knees and started crying.

“I’m so sorry, Stan! I didn’t mean to do it! I’m “so sorry!” “He pleaded as he crawled on his hands and knees over to Stan, “Please don’t die! “Please” don’t fucking die!”

Stan was keeping his eyes closed mostly. He didn’t acknowledge Kevin’s pleading. He looked up at Darius with a grimace on his face, “Man, this fuckin’ hurts, dude. “Goddamn” it hurts!” His voice was weak and he was breathing hard, which I could see was making it hurt even more, and causing blood to flow pretty freely around the bottle now and I could even see it puddling inside the amber glass.

I was extremely impressed with Darius, the way he stayed so calm and took control. “Don’t talk Stan. Try to breathe as evenly as you can.” He looked around at me and said, “Bobby, get dressed and go wake up his parents.”

In unison, both Stan and Kevin barked an emphatic, “NO!”

Darius and I both looked at them in stunned disbelief. “What?!”

Kevin talked fast, “No! Don’t wake them up! They’ll kill us!”

Darius shook his head in piteous wonder, speaking like he was explaining to a small child, “Dude, Stan could “die here! “Don’t you think you oughtta wake your parents up for this? I mean, we’re a ways away from any hospital. I can’t even think of where the closest one is, man. By the time they get here and get him to a hospital…”

Stan spoke up, “It don’t matter, Darius. We just don’t wake ‘em up for nothin’. We’ve had worse than this happen. Ya just “don’t” wake ‘em up.”

“I don’t believe this shit! You tellin’ me you would sit here and fuckin’ DIE and not even wake your parents up and tell ‘em?! You fuckin’ “crazy” mother fuckers! You’re both “fucking insane!”"

“It’s just the way it is, Darius,” Kevin said to Stan’s knee. “It’s always just been that way. We don’t wake ‘em up no matter “what’s” goin’ on. Dad’ll go totally fuckin’ crazy if we wake him up for “any” fuckin’ reason.”

Darius threw his hands up in frustration and sighed. “Ok, what-”ever! “I can’t believe this shit, but…”"” His mind, at least, was working clearly though. After a moment of silence, he looked at me and said, “Go ahead and get dressed and go out in the living room and get all the roaches and pipes and shit and bring ‘em back here to put away. The cops’ll come with ‘em and we don’t need that shit sittin’ around. You’re eighteen, right?” I nodded yes, so he didn’t have to worry about underage drinkers being present.

Matt came back in the room about that time and breathlessly announced, “They’re on their way.” He was white as a sheet and trembling, just like me, just like Kevin– but Kevin was crying too. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was crying because he stabbed his brother, or if he was crying at the thought of what his brother would do to him if he lived. Or for that matter, what Mark or his dad might do to him for this.

“Get dressed and help Bobby clean up shit,” Darius barked at Matt. He looked back at Stan and asked in a soothing voice, “How ya doin’?”

I stood in the doorway with my pants in hand, trying to see around Darius to see Stan’s face. He was trembling and his voice was even weaker than it had been moments ago.

“I’m kinda cold,” was all he said. The blood was starting to soak into the sheets around him and he laid back further into the pile of pillows and closed his eyes.

“Don’t close your eyes, Stan!” Darius all but yelled to get him to look at him, then toned back down to soothing, “Hang in there, dude. Just hang in there. I was full a shit a bit ago when I said you could die from this. It’s in your stomach. It “won’t kill you”, ok? You’re gonna be alright. Keep your eyes open and talk to us…”

Kevin was groveling at Stan’s knees and begging him to forgive him and begging him to live. Matt and I finished getting dressed and went out to the living room, gathering up all the paraphernalia, too stunned to talk at first. I turned off the stereo and started emptying ashtrays into a Big Gulp cup and Matt picked up things and sat them right back down where they were. He was still just too stunned to function. He jumped when I spoke.

“Isn’t that bong the only kinda pipe they were using?”

“Uh… Yeah, I think so. Where’d Billy go?” He asked as if I would know.

“I dunno. I guess home. I think he came in his own car.”

“I can’t believe he fuckin’ stabbed him with a broken fuckin’ bottle, dude.” He stood in the middle of the room, shaking his head, tears welling in his eyes but not leaking out. “His own fuckin’ brother. Fuuuuck.”

I stopped and stood facing him, shaking my head as well, “No shit, man. Uh… you think he’s gonna die?”

“Oh man, I dunno. Oh man, I hope not. Fuuuuck.”

We heard a siren way off in the distance and snapped our heads up at the same instant. I remembered there was a fire station actually not that far away, in Fairmont Park. We both looked at each other with fear in our eyes. We knew the cops would be coming too. We were all of age for drinking, at eighteen, but even though we’d had the high scared out of us, we didn’t know if the cops could tell we’d been on drugs anyway.

We both ran toward the back and Matt stopped and shoved the bong into a kitchen cabinet. I stopped and looked at him like he was stupid. He looked back at me like, ‘what?’ and snapped, taking the bong back out and bringing it with him.

I thought I was prepared, thought I had already seen enough that I wouldn’t be any more affected by it; but when I came around the corner and saw how much blood was all over Stan, his jeans soaked nearly all the way down over his workboots; and the bed, all the sheets for nearly two feet around him; and the floor, puddling in the only clear spot around; I just about lost it.

So much deep crimson. The rich color overwhelms every color around it. Knowing that it’s living liquid, having watched it under a microscope in Biology class; I had a mental image of the blood draining life away from Stan and infusing the sheets around him with that spark, that essence.

Matt was right behind me, saying, “They’re almost here. So what’re we gonna tell ‘em?”

He rounded the corner, almost knocking me over and froze, kinda behind me looking over my shoulder. Darius was speaking a continuous stream of soothing words in Stan’s ear, stroking his forehead softly. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but Stan was smiling. Darius had his other hand on the topside of the bottle, meeting Kevin’s left hand around the underside, both pressing a shirt or something around it, trying to stem the flow of blood– unsuccessfully.

The blood had filled the bottleneck and was running out over the rim, which for some reason freaked me out worse than anything else I’d seen so far. It was like a keg tap, steadily running the red brew over the rim and down over Kevin’s hand. Kevin was a basket case, feeling the warm blood flow over his knuckles, crying and mumbling into Stan’s knee incoherently.

Darius interrupted his stream of words to Stan and looked back at us. He nodded his head down at Kevin, “Help him get dressed. Let me do all the talking. If they question us separately… uh… Say they got in an argument. Nobody knows– well… over the stereo, yeah, over the stereo. Got that Kevin? Over-the-stereo!” he said each word extra clearly so Kevin would absorb it through his quiet hysteria. “So they started fighting and it escalated and the rest happened just like it did. It was an accident that Stan kinda fell into the bottle. Kevin didn’t stab him with it, he just fell into it.”

I said, “Well he did. I mean, he did kinda fall into it.”

“Yeah,” Matt added.

“Cool. Uh, where’s Billy?”

Matt shoved the bong under Kevin’s bed and chuckled, “He fuckin’ screamed like a girl and went out the fuckin’ window the second it happened and ran like a pussy.” The three of us had a slightly tension relieving little laugh.

Kevin had his face right up in Stan’s now, telling him to hang in there, the ambulance is almost here. Stan was still smiling, eyes closed. Kevin took Stan’s bloody hand and squeezed. Stan twitched his fingers. Kevin kissed his cheek and asked him once again not to die. I blinked at that.

Matt and I pulled Kevin away and got him dressed. He was dazed, and almost as lifeless as Stan; so we had to do it all for him. I was the one who had to stuff his genitals into his pants, thinking back on the bizarre night as I did.

I couldn’t really wrap my mind around it at that point, not even a little. I was shell-shocked, stealing glances at a blood drenched dying man while dressing his killer, who had fucked my virgin ass and ‘passed me around’ like a toy. I guess it’s not really surprising my naïve eighteen year old mind couldn’t quite deal.

Three different versions of sirens out front, each dying at its own pace, poured in with the humidity through the open window, pulling us all out of our private thoughts and back into the stark reality of the moment. I looked at Stan, barely any sign of life, the rise and fall of his chest almost imperceptible. So much blood. So fucking much blood. Darius stood, wiped his bloody hands on someone’s discarded shirt and headed up front to direct the paramedics back to us.

***** ********* ***** ********* *****

Epilogue:

That night was a major turning point in my life for many reasons, the glaring and the subtle, the base and the cerebral. I came face to face with mortality that night for the first time in my young life. Stan came within a heartbeat of dying, pulling through miraculously. But we didn’t find that out until the next afternoon. The paramedics talking to each other at the scene made it sound like they quite frankly didn’t think he would live, having lost so much blood from the deep laceration. One of them did tell us that if we had pulled the bottleneck out, he would definitely have been dead before they arrived.

So by the time Darius, Matt and I left the house after three in the morning, we were all pretty sure he had died. Amazingly, or stupidly if you prefer, none of us thought of calling the hospital to find out. Hell, we didn’t even know what hospital they took him to. I sensed that none of us really wanted any further involvement with the Landry Boys. I knew I didn’t.