With or Without You Page 6

  Last year, two gay kids got the crap beat out of them at that park. One of them, a guy named Cory Tanner, was only just released from the hospital this spring, but he’s still something of a vegetable. Malaika led the charge to get the city to start patrolling that area more often and rallied a group of volunteers to clean up the park and start a neighborhood watch group. Once things turned around, the mayor agreed to a “victory” celebration and the city council commissioned a statue to commemorate the event. Guess who hooked Malaika up with the sculptor?

  The blinding dagger of light from the welder vanishes, the machine’s hum dies down, and Erik lifts off the mask to find me in the doorway. I grin like a moron. I only have to wait the time it takes for him to discard the welder and helmet before he’s pulled me into his arms. His exposed skin glistens with fresh sweat that smells like sweet pickles.

  “Hey,” he whispers, leaning his forehead in to touch mine. I love it when he does this. “Glad you could make it. Did Shan get in okay?”

  I smile, but inside I flinch. Again, that weird feeling in my stomach: Shan knows about Erik.

  “Piece of cake,” I report.

  Erik takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Listen, I wanted to apologize. For just showing up at graduation. I should have checked with you first.”

  He cups my cheek in his hand and tows me in for a kiss. How is this happening? How has this happened for nearly a year? I silently intone my kiss prayer: Please let this tell him that I love him and let things continue just as they have been when we go home at night. It’s childish but it’s what I think whenever we kiss. It’s worked so far.

  When we break, I whisper, “You are always welcome in my life.”

  He tilts his head and I consult my mental book, where I’ve cataloged everything there is to know about him: I call it the DictionErik. Tilted head. Noun. What Erik does when he’s not so sure about something. Add a sharp, quick intake of air and the meaning changes: Yeah, let’s talk about that. But instead, his shoulders slump.

  Slump. Verb. Everything’s cool.

  When he’s this close, I can see the cracks in the armor he wears around everyone else. Not even Super Boyfriend is impervious to stress. We haven’t seen much of each other lately, between our mutual race to finish school and his hospital job and extracurricular work on Fierce Angels. He’s tired.

  “How was work?” I ask softly.

  As a nursing intern, Erik often jokes that he’s so low on the totem pole, he’s not even above ground. As a result, he gets shit on a lot, figuratively and literally. He gets all the jobs that the registered nurses don’t want to do. But he takes it all in stride because he digs his work. He spends a lot of time working with AIDS patients, which alternately sends him home elated or ready to collapse. Today was a collapse day.

  Worry and concern drain from his body as he announces, “Mr. Benton was discharged yesterday.”

  “Erik, that’s great! No small thanks to your TLC, I’m sure.”

  Sometimes I meet Erik at the hospital, and I’ve gotten to know Mr. Benton over the last few months. He’s an older guy, really funny, but with a lot of health problems. He’s in and out of the hospital frequently, largely because he forgets to take his meds. Erik went so far as to use his own money to buy this guy a watch that went off whenever it was time to take his pills. But he still forgets. Erik loves Benton and I love that he’s happy Benton’s home again.

  We talk about little things. Movies we want to see, new restaurants we want to try. We’re swaying, not necessarily to what the boom box dictates but to what we want to hear. When we’re like this, I forget that I lead two lives. I don’t care.

  I close my eyes and dismiss any conflicting sensations. The total commitment to joy when I’m with him versus the stifling tundra that is my other life. Happy/Sad. Hot/Cold. Somewhere in the middle lies the exact synthesis of how I feel about Erik. Rapture at absolute zero.

  I know that if I keep us here, our foreheads touching and dancing to internal syncopation, there will be more brooding and reflection. “When I’m like that,” he told me once, “don’t let me go there.” So I reach over and tap the pause button on the boom box.

  Then I poke him in the ribs. “So, uh, you know, not to be rude, because I’m all about the slow dancing with my topless boyfriend, but didn’t someone mention something about presents? Evan needs presents.”

  Brooding Boyfriend evaporates. Erik slaps his forehead. “Presents! I forgot about the presents! Yes, we must have presents!”

  He takes my hand and yanks. We exaggerate giant steps over mounds of broken pails and make contorted turns around dilapidated wagon wheels toward the back of the garage. A tall something, hidden beneath a rumpled blue tarpaulin, waits in the corner, the end of our trek. He positions me in front of the mystery object, stands to one side like a magician’s assistant, and snaps off the tarp with a flourish.

  I’m facing a tall, U-shaped frame made of dark finished oak. I’m reminded of this antique standing mirror I saw in a second-hand shop over on Monroe Street, only here the mirror is missing. The thick poles on the sides are hand-carved, with grooves that spiral down. Up and down the vertical poles, reaching out into the empty space where the mirror should be, is a series of polished steel clamps in various sizes. The poles connect near my feet to a thin horizontal base that anchors the whole contraption firmly to the ground.

  Erik throws his forearm over my shoulder and leans in to me. “Now, I haven’t taken this for a spin yet—I thought I’d leave that up to you—but I’m hoping this will be less cumbersome than THE CLAW.”

  And then I recognize it. I once sketched something very similar to this for him, on a napkin. I had been agonizing over how clumsy, heavy, and awkward THE CLAW is and told him about my dream to build something more versatile. That same day, we’d passed that second-hand shop on Monroe Street and I held the napkin design up to the display window, comparing it to the antique mirror, asking him to imagine the frame without the mirror. Only Erik did more than that. He made it for me. It’s beautiful and thoughtful and I don’t know how to tell him that it looks even more awkward than THE CLAW.

  “And you haven’t seen the best part!” he exclaims as he points out a series of hinges that he’s installed strategically around the frame. Like Houdini, he begins to twist and pivot the frame so it folds into itself until it’s a thick beam nearly as tall as I am. Small knobs are at the top and bottom of the beam. Erik takes a leather strap, loops each end to a knob, and slings it over his shoulder.

  “Totally portable!” he proclaims, beaming. “I’ve tried the clamps on windows of all shapes and sizes and I think you’ll find it pretty flexible. It might take some getting used to—”

  “It’s perfect.” I cut him off, transferring the new easel onto my own shoulder.

  A cream-colored envelope dangles from my gift. I squint at him and he looks away, whistling innocently as he tosses on a T-shirt and flip-flops. I open the envelope and find another pink notecard. I read aloud:

  “Go to State Street Brats.”

  Erik smiles. “Well, if you insist!”

  He snatches my hand and we’re out of the garage. He quickly locks up and, hand in hand, we run back to his Jeep. A second later, we’re driving back toward State Street.

  “I always sucked at scavenger hunts,” I warn him.

  “No worries,” he assures me. “You got da master scavenger hunter on your team.”

  A team. We’re a team. Damn straight.

  We park in an alley off State and make our way to the site of our first date. Jimmy, our favorite server, greets us at the door. We get a patio table, down a couple red and white brats each, and when the bill comes, Jimmy brandishes another cream-colored envelope, this one with a misshapen bulge in the middle.

  Something inside jingles as I open the envelope. A key ring tumbles out. Attached are two keys, one shiny silver key and one shiny gold key.

  “That one will get you through the security door dow
nstairs,” he says, pointing to the gold key. “And this one”—he points to the silver—“is for the apartment. To quote a wise man: You are always welcome in my life.”

  Keys to his apartment. It must be love. Or massive head trauma.

  My brain percolates with visions: After work, I walk down to State and let myself in the security door with MY key and on the second floor, I let myself into Erik’s apartment with MY OTHER key. Good-bye, calling to be let in. Adios, buzz and click as the door unlocks itself. I’ll miss you.

  Not.

  “Thank you.” I kiss him, clutching the keys so tightly I create pink impressions in my palm.

  He coughs in that oh-so-conspicuous way and nods at the envelope. Inside, another pink note. “Back to my apartment,” I read aloud.

  He rolls his eyes. “You’re so demanding.”

  We pay the bill and make the short walk down State, stopping in front of the Bookworm, the coolest used bookstore in Madison. It’s not cool because it has the best selection or because the employees really know their stuff. It’s the coolest because Erik lives in the apartment above it. Coolness by proxy. I make a big deal of opening the security door with MY KEY and we enter.

  We climb the stairs of the second floor, where we find Cece, Erik’s neighbor from across the hall, exiting Erik’s apartment. Cece is a self-designated nouveau Goth. Each nostril, plus her lower lip, sports a small safety pin, and her ears house so many sparkling studs they look like runway lights. But instead of dousing herself in black like other Goths, she chose to rebel against the rebels and dress herself in hot pink, from her tinted hair to her specially dyed Doc Martens. She wears a large black bow tie around her neck, in the center of which is a small button that reads, “I’m so dark I fart bats.”

  She and Erik each check their watches and speak at the same time.

  “You’re early!” says she.

  “You’re late!” says he.

  Stalemate. She points at me—“You never saw me!”—tosses a book of matches at Erik, and disappears into her abode.

  I squint at Erik. “What was she doing in your—?”

  Erik sighs and opens the door for me.

  His space is what you’d expect from a college student’s apartment. It’s microscopic. A combination living/dining room. A kitchen that was very probably once a closet. A bedroom and Lilliputian bathroom. Furniture is a beanbag love seat and a papasan chair, pointed at each other to form a conversation area. He has a couple of his small sculptures in the corners and some of the paintings I’ve done on the walls.

  And tonight, he’s challenging fire codes: More than two dozen flickering candles tickle the darkness. I’m staring in amazement at this, my own personal constellation, but he’s leading me into the bedroom where one last envelope—this one quite a bit bigger—sits in the middle of his bed, tied with a violet ribbon. He nods at it. I sit on the edge of the bed as he squats nearby.

  “Happy graduation.” From the DictionErik: Rubbing forefinger under the nose—I’m nervous. I don’t see him nervous much.

  I open the envelope and I find a plane ticket inside. One-way flight to San Diego. My name is printed on it.

  “San Diego?” I smile at him. His eyes say he’s clearly worried. “What’s up?”

  He sits down next to me. “Evan, I’m in. I got the phone call last week.”

  Two months ago, Erik flew out to California to interview for a graduate program at an HIV research hospital in San Diego. It’s a very prestigious facility, and it’s all he’s talked about since I met him. Every double shift he’s ever worked, every sleepless night of studying has all been aimed at getting a position in this program. This is his dream.

  I throw my arm around his neck. “Erik … that’s … God, I’m so happy for you!”

  His confidence remains elusive but he’s all grins now. “I can’t believe it. This is exactly what I want to do. They made me a really good offer—no, an incredible offer. I’ll be going to school at night, working with some of the most brilliant HIV researchers in the world during the day …”

  I glance again at the ticket and can actually feel my brain click. The departure date is August 12. The choice of date is no accident. That’s the day we decided was our anniversary. Though we’d been dating since June last year, we officially became a couple on August 12. That was when we talked and agreed:

  • we were seeing each other exclusively;

  • we were working toward a committed relationship;

  • if Guy A so much as looked at another man, Guy B had the right to gut Guy A with a spork.

  When he first told me that he was going for the interview, he must have seen I was worried, because he assured me that he probably didn’t have a chance in hell of getting in and he was really only going for the interview experience. He made it sound like an impossible possibility, so we never discussed a future that involved California. But he knew what I was thinking before he got on that plane: What happens to us if you get in?

  I’m holding the answer in my hand.

  reckoning

  “Come with me, Evan.”

  Four words. I can’t even reply with one.

  He talks faster than I ever thought he was capable. “Here’s how I figure it: We pack a moving truck on the eleventh. Tyler’s agreed to drive it out to California for us. We fly out on the twelfth. Meet up with Tyler on the thirteenth. He flies home and …”

  Erik stops. My eyes haven’t left the ticket and anyone who knows me knows that stunned silence does not bode well. He starts over, slower. “School’s over. You’re eighteen. You can do whatever you want. You were planning on leaving Madison anyway, right? Just make a small course correction.”

  Absolute zero begins to overcome the rapture and I try not to panic.

  “I … There’s Chicago. I was going … Chicago. School.” I hate it when language leaves me.

  Erik places his strong hands firmly on my shoulders and squeezes. “Evan, I might be way off base here. But I always got the impression that Chicago was never really … your heart’s desire. It was just something you felt you had to do after high school. You were going there because that’s where Davis was going.”

  I can count on one hand the number of times Erik has mentioned Davis in the year we’ve been together. Now, Davis has come up twice in as many days. Something I’ve been dreading is coming. A reckoning.

  I shrug. “No. Well, yes, Davis is going too. But they have a really great art school.”

  Erik squeezes my shoulders again, playfully. “But is it a school you’ve got your heart set on?” He takes the envelope and pulls out more papers—college brochures. “I did a bit of research while I was in California, picked up a little information. There are some really great art schools in San Diego. Some of them, that’s all they teach. All art, all the time.”

  I glance at the brochures. When Davis and I talked college, I only knew that my heart wanted out. Something new, beyond Madison. Chicago became the most convenient route to take. But without realizing it, the last eleven months created an alternate course. I’d give anything for a compass right now.

  Erik misreads my hesitation. He tosses the brochures aside and holds my head in his hands, lining up our eyes so all I see is deep, penetrating brown. “Or you can say ‘screw school.’ No one is forcing you to do that. You can get a job. You can paint. God, there’s so much you can do. Right now, I don’t even care what that is as long as it’s something you feel strongly about. Just … please do it with me.”

  Crying will give him all the wrong messages. Crying will say, Don’t you understand? I’ve been laughed at my entire life and when you express this much confidence in me, it chokes me and I’d run but there’s nowhere to go because you’re the only place I’ve come to know.

  I don’t cry. I will later.

  It’s an odd sensation to get what you want and still feel terrified. Inside, aspiration accelerates, blurring everything I know. Outside, my face slackens, resolve masquerades as rejectio
n. Erik sees the battle behind my eyes, the uncertainty in my posture. I watch as his shoulders slowly deflate.

  I set the ticket down on the bed. He’s still holding my face, his thumbs pressing gently just under my eyes. I slide my hands up to his shoulders and knead the muscles softly.

  “I love you, Erik.”

  We kiss. When he draws back, he’s crying.

  “I am such a jerk.”

  And the brooding resurfaces. I can see the ghosts of disastrous relationships hover over his head. His Kryptonite: insecurity over past failures.

  “This has always been my problem. I throw too much too fast at people.” He stands and wipes his eyes.

  I should feel completely smothered by everything Erik is suggesting. But in the presence of this mostly confident, slightly wacky, completely caring guy, I am strangely calm. Eye-of-the-storm calm.

  “Hey there, Self Pity, party of one.” I try to sound reassuring in my joke. “I love that you’ve put so much thought into this.”

  Erik half laughs, half sobs. “Yeah. Too much thought.”

  I want to say something to reassure him, but before I can think of what that is, he sinks to his knees.

  “Okay, Evan, look. I can’t take back anything I said tonight. Largely because I meant it all. But I don’t expect an answer right now. I don’t even want one. I want you to go home and just … think. It’s a lot to consider, I know. Take your time. We’ve worked too hard at this for you to make a decision at the speed of stupid.”

  I laugh. This was how Erik’s dad taught him to take his time when making decisions. He claimed that the fastest speed in the universe wasn’t the speed of light but the speed of stupid. Intelligence is slow, measured. Stupidity is lightning-quick, impulsive. Every decision Erik makes glides along at the speed of smart.

  He takes my hand and gets that very, very serious look on his face. “Don’t rush this. You’ve got all summer to come up with an answer. You’ve got, in fact, until August eleventh.”