With or Without You Read online

  with or without you

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or

  real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are

  the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or

  locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse paperback edition May 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Brian Farrey

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction

  in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Designed by Cara Petrus and Karina Granda

  The text of this book was set in Stone Serif.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Library of Congress Control Number 2010038722

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0699-5

  ISBN 978-1-4424-0700-8 (eBook)

  Excerpts from KEITH HARING JOURNALS by Keith Haring, copyright © 1996, 2010

  by The Keith Haring Foundation, Inc. Used by permission of Viking Penguin,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Lyrics from the song “Hard” used by permission of Gregory Douglass.

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Chapter: rules

  Chapter: octagon

  Chapter: secret

  Chapter: chasers

  Chapter: lesson

  Chapter: big

  Chapter: gift

  Chapter: reckoning

  Chapter: opening

  Chapter: resurrection

  Chapter: moving

  Chapter: deluge

  Chapter: volume

  Chapter: retreat

  Chapter: unnecessary

  Chapter: stonewall

  Chapter: liberation

  Chapter: namaste

  Chapter: shan

  Chapter: lies

  Chapter: escort

  Chapter: bugchasers

  Chapter: ultimatum

  Chapter: unveiled

  Chapter: missing

  Chapter: letter

  Chapter: flight

  Chapter: hell

  Chapter: damage

  Chapter: gone

  Chapter: pentimento

  Chapter: afterword

  acknowledgments

  Chapter: about the author

  The author has been remiss in expressing his heartfelt thanks

  to those teachers in his life who encouraged and nurtured him

  as a writer. He’d like to make up for that now by

  dedicating this book to them:

  Donna Weber

  Sheila Pervisky

  Lois Dassow

  Ann Kroll

  Mike Hensgen

  Mary Greenlaw-Meyer

  Helen Cartwright

  Priscilla Voitman

  Anton Dern

  Dick Cavanaugh

  Ted Moskonas

  Bob Slaby

  J.D. Whitney

  Bill Deering

  Mary Jo Pehl

  Deborah Keenan

  Sheila O’Connor

  Lawrence Sutin

  David Haynes

  Patricia Weaver Francisco

  Mary Logue

  Susan Power

  Brian Malloy

  Looking at the list now, it seems smaller than I imagined.

  I guess it’s their fondly remembered contributions that make

  it all seem much, much more vast.

  Pure Art exists only on the level of instant

  response to pure life.

  —Keith Haring

  rules

  Hit the ground.

  Curl into a ball.

  Cover your head.

  Don’t cry. Ever.

  All this I know. It is instinct, as automatic as any breath, any blink, any beat of the heart. I repeat eighteen years’ worth of these hard-learned lessons over and over in my head, waiting for the hail of blows to stop.

  I worry it won’t be enough.

  Over the war cries and laughs from above, I hear a whimper. It’s Davis. He’s nearby and while I can’t see him, I know he’s gone fetal, mirroring my position on the ground. I’m still, silent. I offer no sport. But Davis just made a mistake. His groan earns him the undivided attention of our attackers. I venture one impossibly short glance out between my elbows. Four different pairs of feet launch into a vicious, steel-toed assault on my best friend.

  “You got something to say, faggot?”

  Pete Isaacson, of course. I dare another look and see five of them total. The usual suspects. Pete’s mob from the wrestling team: the troglodytes. Pete lords over them all in his trademark bowling shoes, burnished emerald and ochre. Two glints of gun-metal silver, dog tags on a chain around his neck, shoot the sun’s reflection like a laser. He’s grinning. “Come on, faggot. Lemme hear you howl.”

  When Davis doesn’t answer, Pete stomps on Davis’s hip, eliciting a scream. I’m too sore to take in a breath. I can only send silent pleas to Davis: Shut up, shut up, shut up. Davis sobs. The savage blows pitch his short, skinny body this way and that.

  Don’t cry. Ever.

  I’ve never cried during a beating. I used to think that I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing they’d hurt me. The real reason? Crying solves nothing. I only do things that make a difference. Like now. When I summon the strength to cough.

  The effect is instantaneous. Three of the trogs break off and renew their assault on me. One of them falls to his knees, pummeling the side of my head and my right arm with his fists. A year and a half ago, Kenny Dugan broke that arm when he slammed me into a locker. That might be him now, trying to recapture the glory. So, I do all I can do. I take a diversion.

  LOCAL TEEN DEAD IN

  GAY-BASHING INCIDENT

  Madison, Wis.—Authorities are questioning five local wrestlers in the death of Evan Weiss, a senior at Monona High School. Just one day before all six were set to graduate, the students are facing charges of first-degree murder in what authorities are describing as a clear case of gay bashing.

  Weiss and his best friend, Davis Grayson, were walking home after the last day of school when the suspects allegedly jumped the pair in a field behind the school and beat them.

  Grayson remains hospitalized in critical care.

  Perhaps most tragic is that Weiss died mere blocks from the state capitol, where Governor Doyle Petersen is days away from signing major hate-crime legislation into law.

  When asked to comment on the incident, Governor Petersen said, “It’s difficult to comment without all the facts. But once these boys are found guilty, I plan to lobby for the death penalty and see those little fuckers fry.”

  My self-inflicted fantasy does the trick and carries me away into unconsciousness. I don’t know how much later it is when I feel someone gently prodding my chest. I move and my body explodes. A discharge of pain from my shoulder leaves my right arm flaccid. I wail and pull it
to my chest.

  I look up at Davis. His left eye is swollen; it’ll be completely shut by morning. His sandy blond hair juts out in every direction, decorated with grass clippings. Dark streaks crisscross his face like war paint and, with the sun disappearing behind trees and houses, shadow and blood fuse into one.

  “A car drove by and they freaked.” His whisper is like grinding glass. “You were out. I didn’t know what to do.”

  He holds out his hand to help me up but I shrink away, keeping my right arm against my chest. He sees this.

  “Is it broken?”

  I vividly remember what it felt like when Kenny broke it—a river of knives flowing up to my shoulder—and this does not feel like that. I shake my head and, using my good arm, push off the ground. We stand facing each other for a moment, each fading into a silhouette. We limp back to my house.

  octagon

  From the safety of my bedroom window, I watch day retreat, leaving a scarlet-toned dusk. Colors ebb into shadows, segregating the houses on our street. Two blocks over, I hear joyous shouts from James Madison Park, heralding summer vacation for one and all on Lake Mendota. I want to enjoy this, my favorite season, but enjoying hurts.

  Davis sits at the edge of my unmade bed, his feet not even reaching the floor. He’s playing with the tear in his shirt. It’s his favorite shirt. His mother bought it for his birthday a year ago. He’s protective of things his mother buys for him. It’s ruined now.

  Davis smolders—corrugated brow, blue-flame glare. Everything in him focuses on a single spot on the floor. He is gone.

  “So close, eh?” I ask, shaking my head. “Almost made it the whole school year. Timing couldn’t be worse. I was going to make us T-shirts—‘372 days without a work-place beating.’”

  It should get a reaction. It doesn’t. I press on.

  “I heard Pete’s going to Ohio State. Wrestling scholarship. I think they should offer a scholarship to anyone who can explain how wrestling is not gay.”

  Still nothing.

  I should know better. What happened today wasn’t typical. Pete and the trogs went all out. Way beyond being slammed into a locker or given a simple black eye. This wasn’t just bullying. With graduation coming, this was their last hurrah. They wanted a memento: permanent damage. So, I shouldn’t be making light of it. Why can’t I stop?

  Because I have to reach him. I have to reach Davis. It’s what I know.

  I pull our triage kit out from under my bed and kneel next to Davis. I can smell his blood. The scent overpowers the sharp sting of acrylic paint and turpentine in my room. I can only smell blood.

  “I think Kenny Dugan is staying here in Madison but I heard he couldn’t get into the UW. I wonder if the Tech offers a major in ‘Duh.’”

  Davis glares at the floor, avoiding my eyes. But the corner of his mouth shoots up, just for a second. Almost there. Drive it home.

  I lower my voice and do my best Kenny. “Yeah, I’m here to major in ‘Duh’ and minor in”—I strum my lips up and down with my finger—“bebedebedbeebededebe.”

  Davis shouts, “Quit being such a tardmonkey! This isn’t funny.”

  His voice shakes on “funny” and his periwinkle eyes moisten.

  We don’t say anything. I dab at his face with a dry sponge. He returns the favor. The routine is sad but has a strange, familiar comfort.

  I stare over Davis’s left shoulder at the wall by the head of my bed where half a dozen of my own paintings hang. Each one evokes the style of a different artist—O’Keefe, Seurat, Van Gogh—but the subject matters are mine.

  Unlike my predecessors, I don’t paint on canvas. I paint on glass. I go to auctions and pawn shops to buy old windows. Some still framed, others just sheets of glass. Oval, rectangle, I’ve even got a triangle. I built my own easel years ago out of an old music stand and a series of rusty vise clamps that extends out in a bunch of Shiva-like arms. Davis dubbed it THE CLAW. It’s heavy and awkward, but I can position the window with the clamps and angle it toward whatever I want to capture. Then I paint the image I see through the glass, stroke by stroke, until the world beyond the window is replaced with my acrylic reality. My sister, Shan, used to tease me by calling it “poor man’s paint-by-number.” I miss my sister.

  My favorite is an octagon-shaped window, just more than a foot across, with an oak border and slats that divide the glass into a tic-tac-toe board. I found it at an estate sale at an old farm house about twenty miles north of Madison. I lugged it around with me this past year, painting different scenes into each of the little squares within. This is what’s in each box:

  The perfectly toned pec of a UW volleyball player

  The Orpheum movie theatre marquee with two lights burned out

  The snakelike chain shackled to a bike in James Madison Park

  Two chop-sticks next to a broken fortune cookie on a white plate

  A stack of lead bars, as seen on the Wisconsin state flag

  The antique doorknob to the Rainbow Youth Center

  A street map of Madison with a large star labeled YOU ARE HERE

  Three blue squiggles and two yellow circles on a white background

  Each box depicts a moment from my nine-year friendship with Davis. A moment that represented a turning point for us. A moment when everything that followed could no longer impersonate what had gone before. The last box is empty. My plan was to fill it in tonight after our last day of high school—with what, I still don’t know. Of all my work, this is also Davis’s favorite. He doesn’t know it, but I’ve been planning to give it to him as a graduation gift.

  I’m no longer sure that’s a good idea. None of the images represents the Davis sitting in front of me. The Davis that I see in my mosaic hasn’t been around for several months. Senior year was hard. I keep hoping that if I wait it out long enough, the Davis I grew up with will come back. But I don’t think that’s going to be tonight.

  I wish Davis had a diversion, like I do. I envision my death and the repercussions for those who remain. It’s not, as I’ve explained to Davis countless times, a wish for death. I just find a strange solace in the imagined aftermath.

  Davis is logical. He has no use for imagination. He has no way of escaping. So everything rots inside him. Davis rarely chooses anger.

  He chooses it now.

  Like an eruption, he leaps from my bed. I fall back, favoring my left side. Davis slams my bedroom door shut. He kicks the wall. My paintings—most hung from hooks by thin wire—dance in place. His face, freshly cleaned, is marred with more tears. This is not my best friend. This person is molten. Dangerous.

  He falls to his knees on my lousy old carpeting and keens. I have seen Davis cry many times. High-pitched and intermittent. Not this time. His sobs are low and forceful, what I’m sure the end of the world will sound like.

  “I hate this fucking city!” He pulses, beating useless fists into the floor. It’s a sentiment we’ve both uttered over the years, neither completely believing it. But he makes me believe it now.

  I kneel next to him; he sobs uncontrollably. I lay my left arm across his shoulders, easing my right arm around his front, and I hold him. These moments—where consolation seems impossible—are rare, but I’ve always excelled at getting us through. He continues to cry, words reduced to fevered gibberish. He shakes. I shake.

  “Don’t forget,” I whisper, praying quietly for the words that will fix this. If they exist. “Chicago. In the fall. College.”

  The University of Chicago has glimmered on the horizon since last summer. No matter what happened, we told ourselves, “Next year, we’ll be in Chicago.” The worry that ate our lives for months—would we both get in?—vanished when our acceptance letters came in January. Done deal. Escape from trogs, from parents, from everything that held us down never felt closer than when we discussed our college plans.

  “Chicago” is the magic word. Davis stops shaking. This is where, if we were boyfriends, I would kiss him. But we never went there, he and I. That
’s not who we are, and that’s not who we can be. That was decided long ago. Maybe forever ago.

  His peace evaporates. Davis gets up and paces a fiery swath across my room. “And do what? Meet another version of Pete Isaacson in college and get the shit kicked out of us all over again? No. Bullshit. I’m sick of this. We’re done. Right now.”

  I’ve seen this. Heard this. For nine years. And like saying he hates Madison, I believe he means it. And it worries me.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper, which he thrusts in my face. It’s a lousy photocopy job of a handwritten flyer:

  CHASERS

  Learn what it means to be gay!

  Stop being a doormat!

  Join Chasers

  First meeting: this Friday

  7:00 p.m. RYC—Upstairs, room Four

  “These were posted at the Rainbow Youth Center,” Davis says as he continues to pace.

  The Rainbow Youth Center, Madison’s only hangout for GLBT teens, is always starting new social groups. But the notices are usually typed, with tacky clip art. This one pings my radar as suspect.

  There’s something familiar about this: the energy burning in his eyes, the apprehension building in my stomach. Probably because I’ve spent nine years following Davis on any number of schemes aimed at making us fit in, finding us friends besides each other. None of them has worked. But I always followed. I probably always will.

  “Sure,” I say, setting the paper down. “If that’s what you want.”

  I don’t argue. Davis has enough on his mind. Next week, he’s moving into the shelter at the RYC. His dad, one of those “you’re eighteen, you’re graduated, you’re no longer my responsibility” kind of guys, is kicking him out. He thinks it will build Davis’s character. I think he’s an asshole.

  My response calms him down but his eyes are still determined. Then, a grin slides across his face.

  “Besides,” he says, “maybe we’ll meet some hot guys. We could use a couple dates, right? First time for everything.”

  His laugh sounds more like a grunt. I nod, but I look to the side. My eyes would give too much away.