9.11 - 64. Chapter 64

October 27, 2001

Tribeca, NYC

“Are you sure you don’t want me to wait for you, Mr. Schluter?” the limo driver asked.

“No, I’ll be fine,” I said. He looked worried. “I’ll just take a cab back when I’m done here.” The last thing I needed was the nagging feeling that I was keeping a limo driver waiting for me when I had no idea how long I’d be here.

“Yes, sir,” he said, and drove off, leaving me in front of Jeanine’s condo building. I strolled confidently inside, and found the doorman. “I need you to let me into 4A,” I said to him. “I’m Brad Schluter.”

“I’ll need to see some identification,” he said. He wasn’t the same guy that had been here when the towers collapsed, so it was no surprise that he didn’t know me. I handed him my driver’s license.

“Let me check the records,” he said.

“As long as you can do it quickly, that will be fine,” I said, unable to hide my annoyance at being delayed. I almost felt like I was dealing with Triton’s security. He ignored me and fumbled through a file, then turned back to me.

“Not long at all. This way,” he said, more pleasantly now. We took the elevator up to the condo, and he unlocked the door for me. I walked in, handed him a twenty, thanked him, and then closed the door, not quite in his face, but almost. I didn’t need the company of a doorman at this point.

The condo had been thoroughly cleaned, so the dust from the debris was all gone. Darius had been working to settle Jeanine’s estate, and had gotten all of her possessions out of here. His goal hadn’t been to remove memories of her from this place, but more to save anything he wanted to keep from Hank’s rapacious family. How Darius had managed to find the strength to come back here so soon after that horrible event was beyond me. What an impressive young man he’d turned into. He was organized and resourceful, and had an intense loyalty to our family. Darius wasn’t as bright as Will, and he wasn’t as talented as JJ, but he was a solid guy, with a lot of attributes to commend him. I was rightfully proud of him.

I looked around the condo and smiled ruefully. Darius had gotten all the stuff he wanted out, then he’d let Hank’s relatives know they could come and get what they wanted. They had descended on this place like vultures, and stripped almost everything away. As it was, there was barely any furniture left, just a sofa, and a coffee table with some chairs in the kitchen. I wondered briefly why they’d been left, and decided it was because they were ultra-modern, a style that probably wouldn’t appeal to Hank’s family. I wandered through this place, feeling the ghosts around me, and that was just intensified by the bedrooms, which were completely empty. It was almost claustrophobic, which was odd, since there was so little furniture, but I felt as if the walls were closing in on me.

I climbed the stairs to the rooftop and went out there. It had been cleaned up too, and while there wasn’t much furniture up here either, there was enough to make it feel like a home. I walked over to one of the benches Jeanine had installed. It faced a small plot of grass that seemed to be thriving, despite the traumas it had suffered from the debris. I remembered how that plot had once been a flowerbed, and how Will had suggested they create a place for Maddy to play. They’d done just that, although it was unlikely that Maddy would ever get to enjoy it.

I sat on the bench and felt my emotions overwhelm me. I shouldn’t have come here on this trip. Being here was bringing all these painful memories back, and they were assaulting my brain like a battering ram. I’d come mostly out of concern for Will, because I didn’t want him to have to deal with a Tony-like rejection on his own. I hadn’t been too sure about Zach before this trip, and I’d succumbed to the general opinion that he was a self-centered asshole, but seeing him with Will, I was revising that view. It was impossible not to note how well he treated Will, and how he worked to prop him up when he was down. Giving Will that jersey was a spectacular gesture. Shit, that was almost worth enough to make me buy him a car. For the first time since 9-11, Will seemed to truly be happy.

I’d only briefly worried about Will with Wally and Clara. I almost chuckled as I thought about their conversation on the plane. Wally had expected Will to buckle under his authority just as Gathan, or probably Zach, would have. But Will had been raised in a world of money and power, the kind of power that insulated him from a lot of the basic restraints most people had to deal with. Wally had tried to use parental authority on Will, and I grimaced and smiled ruefully at how spectacularly that had failed. I’d learned the hard way that respect for paternal authority wasn’t something Will took as a requirement. With him, you had to earn it, and that probably wasn’t going to happen with Wally. Wally and Clara were just too dogmatic in their attitudes and approaches, where simply saying ‘because I said so’ was enough of an explanation for their kids, or any kids. Will didn’t work that way. He needed a reason. He was too smart, and too well educated, for a simple dismissive platitude to work.

The problem he had, and the thing that worried me the most, was his tendency to just tackle a problem head-on, without thinking about the ramifications of his actions. I laughed when I thought about that, at how ridiculous it was for me to cite that as one of his problems, when he was better at that than I was. But I had learned from years of beating my head against the wall, and he would learn too. He was so much further along in that process than I was at his age. He was so much further along in almost every way than I was.

I wasn’t surprised that he’d gone to bat for Zach, because like me and Stef, he had a weakness for guys he slept with. And if I were going to be painfully honest, if I had really been worried about him buying Zach a car, I could have probably figured it out and stopped it. Will blustered a lot with me, but if it had been important, he would have listened. I wondered if I’d sort of blocked the signs that he may do that because I didn’t think it was such a bad idea for Zach to have a car. Was I that Machiavellian, even with my own son? I did a bit of soul searching, and decided that I wasn’t. I just didn’t choose to fight that battle. I hadn’t liked Zach enough to advocate for him, so Will had stepped in instead. I could let it bother me that he didn’t come to me first, because I probably could have made the whole thing happen more smoothly, but he was too independent to do that. Sometimes, that wasn’t a good thing.

Wally and Clara didn’t really like Will, and probably thought he was a bad influence on Zach. Will picked up on their strangeness, but I don’t think he knew why they were weird. They were pretty gay-friendly, and according to Gathan, they’d been that way even before we’d come into their lives. But being gay-friendly, and seeing your son with a guy who was out and proud, were entirely different. They looked at Will like he was a predator, like he was going to drag Zach off against his will to a life of sinful sodomy. It was unfortunate that Zach wouldn’t admit that he was gay, or at least bisexual, to his parents, but then again, as far as I knew he hadn’t admitted it to Will, and I doubted he’d even admitted it to himself. I understood part of that. He wanted to go professional, to play in the NFL, and there weren’t any gay football players, at least that anyone knew about. For Zach to admit he was into guys, he’d have to toss his potential career away, and he loved football probably more than anything else. It was ironic that JJ disliked Zach so much, because in a way, he and Zach were stuck in the same dilemma. Neither one of them could pursue an open relationship with another guy and still participate in their sport of choice. That was a problem, and in my typical fashion, I tried to think of a way to solve it, and then stopped myself. This was not something I could fix, not for Zach, and not for JJ. They were going to have to make their own choices, and all I could do was try to support them, and minimize any damage they incurred.

My mind shifted to Zach’s football game, and my own pain returned with a horrible strength, enough to tangle my stomach up to the point of almost vomiting. Watching Zach out there, seeing him in that uniform with HAYES splayed across the back, and catching those familiar violet eyes as they sought us out in the stands, had been agonizing. It had transported me in time, back to high school, when I went to countless football games to watch Robbie play. Zach had that same twinkle in his eye, that same raw competitiveness that Robbie had. With his helmet on, it was hard not to imagine that I was watching Robbie play. I’d actually let myself believe that, until the end of the game, when Zach had whipped off his helmet and exposed my self-deception. I’d been crushed, but stoically buried it and continued my inane conversation with Wally, Clara, and the Piehls.

I sighed and looked beyond the condo, my eyes migrating to where the twin towers had been. Even now there were lights over there. They’d been working diligently to clear the wreckage away. It was truly heartwarming to see how many people volunteered to help out. They were literally sifting through the debris one five-gallon bucket at a time. As macabre as it was, I’d posted a reward for Robbie’s rings, the two that we’d exchanged. The first one was a simpler band, the one I’d gotten him back in 1986 when I’d first asked him to be my partner. The other band was more recent, the ones we’d exchanged last year when we were married.

My psychologist had explained what I already knew: that I’d done that in a desperate bid to grab some piece of Robbie, even an inanimate part of him. He’d gently guided me to suspect that the reason for that was my hope, buried deep in my psyche, that somehow Robbie was still alive and out there. Maybe he hadn’t been killed by the building falling on top of him? Maybe he’d just been knocked unconscious, and had lost his memory, and was wandering around New York, clueless as to who he was? I mean, it was possible. They hadn’t found his body.

And then, with a logical assault so thorough I could have been JP, I carved that theory up and declared it as dead as the one that said the earth was formed in six days. If Robbie had survived, he wouldn’t have been able to hide in this city unnoticed, not with the fervent search that had been implemented for survivors. Even if he’d lost his wallet, his clothes, and everything on him, he wouldn’t have been able to hide out that long. But what if he’d wanted to? What if he had been so miserable with me and our family, that he’d taken that opportunity to escape? He had an uncle, Aaron, who had done just that during World War II. Could Robbie have been that desperate to get away? I shook my head. That was not him, not Robbie. I knew he loved me, and the boys, too much to put us through that. I got up and walked over to the edge and stared at the place where the towers used to be, and remembered that fateful day. I remembered his voice during our last conversation, and I remembered hearing the roar through the phone as the building fell on top of them. I shook my head again and said “No.” There was no more hope, there was no more Robbie. My fantasy of him walking back into my life was just that, a fantasy, and it was an unhealthy one at that.

I all but staggered back to the bench and sat down, then I adjusted my posture, so I was sideways with my feet on it, my arms wrapped around my legs, and my face buried in the jeans that covered my knees. And for what seemed like the millionth time, I cried, really cried, letting out all of my horrible sadness in the form of moisture, and let the denim sop it up. I thought about this whole process, and how I’d gone through these different phases of saying goodbye to Robbie. Each time I’d let part of him go. Each time, I’d surrendered up a piece of my soul with it. Only this time, it was the real deal. This time, I stared at the void where he’d lost his life, and I admitted, and acknowledged, that he was dead. I swallowed hard, swallowing the grief and the agony, and grappled with the fact that he was truly gone, and that I’d never see him again. Never. No more hoping he’d walk in off the street, no more planning my life around him coming in to save me.

It was cold now, although it was probably colder to me. I had California blood, and even mildly cool temperatures like these sent me shivering, although maybe there was more to it than just the cold. I sat there feeling incredibly alone. Is this how I would always feel? If this was my destiny, did I even want to go on? Waking up to this feeling of emptiness every morning, only to find it replaced by the sheer agony of grief, was not a future I wanted. How did I get beyond this? How did I heal my soul?

Even as I contemplated the pain, and briefly fantasized about ending it by ending my life, I knew I could never do that. To do that would be to admit defeat, and I was too competitive to go there. And even more than that, it would mean abrogating all of my responsibilities. I’d been a stand-up guy for the family, doing what it took to make sure we were successful, and that everyone was taken care of. There’s no way I could go back on that now. And even if I could get beyond those two hurdles, the third one was a deal-killer. I could never hurt my family like that. They were struggling too, and they needed me to be around. And even if I couldn’t help them deal with their grief, the very least I could do is not pile more on top of it. No, if that was my lot in life, to be miserable for every waking moment, and probably for the sleeping ones as well, then that was the burden I would carry.

I looked off at the void in the sky where the towers had been, hoping I’d see a vision of Robbie to prop me up, much as had happened after his memorial service, but this time, there was nothing. He was gone, finally gone, and there was nothing I could do about it. This time, I was beyond his reach, and he was beyond mine.

I sat there for a very long time, or so it seemed, gazing out at the altered skyline, shivering in the cold. I began to mentally plot out the next stage in my life, the post-grief stage. Robbie had told me to meet someone new, but I wasn’t ready for that, and I didn’t want that. All of this trauma had blunted my libido, to the point where I wasn’t really horny anymore. I didn’t really need someone else to worry about, and I sure as fuck didn’t need the pressures of re-entering the dating scene. Besides, it seemed to me that guys who went out desperately looking for their Mr. Right just ended up finding their Mr. Right Now, and it seemed like that fast hookup came with a lot of problems. I didn’t need those kinds of problems.

I could focus on my family, but if I made that my key area, I’d just end up pissing them all off. My sons were old enough to do their own thing, and if I tried to be instrumental in their lives, I’d probably end up trying to control what they did, and that would tick them off. It bothered me that I was that way, but I was trying to be realistic, looking at myself with blemishes and all. I’d be there if they needed me, and to encourage them; anything else was just an annoyance.

That meant that the only real area open to me, without some extra exploration, was work. This was a dynamic time for Triton, and it was also a dynamic time for venture capital funding. The NASDAQ had just tanked, but that didn’t mean there weren’t new ideas out there, desperate for money. We were entertaining plenty of proposals. And companies we funded now wouldn’t list for a couple of years anyway, so the current conditions weren’t all that important.

I was distracted by the thundering sound of feet on the stairway, and wondered if some gang had managed to fight their way past the doorman and into this condo. I glanced over at the entrance to the rooftop, to see Will and Zach come bursting through the door. Will started to stride confidently over to see me, but Zach hung back, sensing that we may not want his company. Will stopped, reached out his hand to Zach, and then dragged him along. I pondered how well Zach read Will, even in that little vignette. With Will, if you forced him to do something, he’d rebel, but if you waited for him to come around and asked him, he’d do it willingly. So Zach had made Will show him he was welcome.

“What are you doing here?” Will demanded. “It’s fucking freezing up here.”

“It’s not that cold,” Zach said.

Will put his hands on my bare arms in a caring way. “He’s like an ice cube,” he said to Zach. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs.”

I didn’t want to go back down there, but before I could argue, Zach pulled off his jacket and put it over my shoulders. It was still warm from his body, and it smelled like him, and a little like Robbie. “Thanks,” I said to him. “But now you’ll get cold.”

“I’m tough,” he said, being cocky, and making me smile. I made room for them, and they joined me on the bench, with Will between me and Zach.

“I’ll keep you warm,” Will said, and put his arm around Zach. Zach got nervous, because he was probably uncomfortable with displays of affection, but then he relaxed, evidently deciding that I was harmless enough.

“You played incredibly well today,” I told Zach, something I’d already said, but something I thought he may need to hear it again.

“It meant a lot to me that you guys flew all the way out here to see the game,” he said. I expected Will to make some suggestive rejoinder to that remark, but he didn’t, because that would have made Zach uncomfortable. It was really impressive how those two read each other so well.

“So why are you up here?” Will asked, getting us back to the topic at hand.

“These past weeks, since the attacks, have been a literal living hell for me,” I said, opening up to him, and to Zach, since he was here too. “I really don’t want to go on living like this. I really can’t handle this much pain.” I felt a tear fall down my cheek, and I felt Will’s arm around me, squeezing me affectionately.

“Dad, you can’t not go on living,” he said firmly.

“You were worried that I’d kill myself?” I asked, mildly outraged.

“I was worried you would hurt yourself,” he corrected. “You’re pretty good at finding ways to do that. Coming here was probably a good choice.” He was pissed off at me for making him worry. How ironic. Like he’d never done that to me.

“I’m not going to hurt myself; I just need to find a way beyond this pain. That’s why I came here. To do a little soul searching.”

“Did you find out that you actually have a soul?” Will joked, getting a snaugh from Zach, a gesture so much like Robbie’s that it almost sent me into a tailspin.

“I got some closure,” I said.

“How?” Will asked. I was going to blow him off, and tell him I didn’t want to talk about it, but then I remembered that he was dealing with this too.

“I’ve been holding out this hope that Robbie would somehow have miraculously survived the collapse of the building. I subconsciously expected a phone call from a hospital, or the authorities, that they’d found him wandering around in a daze.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Will said to me meaningfully, and I could feel his pain too.

“No, it’s not. And that’s why I’m here, to finally figure that out, and to try and decide what to do with my life going forward.”

“Maybe you just need to get laid,” he said. He was joking, but he was also prodding me, to get me to tell him my plan.

“No, that’s not where I’m at. I think that I need to focus on work. I think that’s where I need to spend my time.” I waited for him to argue with me, but he didn’t. “It’s either that, or I spend all my time with you guys.”

“I like spending time with you,” he insisted.

“But if I did that, I’d be really involved in your life, and I’d piss you off,” I told him.

He chuckled. “Probably.” We sat there for a bit, not saying anything. “If this means you’re gone more, like to Connecticut, I won’t bust your balls.”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” I said lovingly. We sat there a bit longer, and then I decided it was time to go. “You think you can take me back to the hotel?”

“We can do that,” Zach said.

“You think we can stop off at a diner or something before we do?” I asked them. Food was always a good draw for Will, and from what I’d seen, Zach had just as big an appetite.

Zach smiled. “We can do that too.”

“Let’s leave the Durango here. We’ll come back and get it before we leave,” I said. We hailed a cab, and I told him to take us to Times Square. The first thing I did was go into a kitschy tourist shop and buy a hoodie, so I could give Zach his jacket back. Then the three of us wandered around Times Square, mostly enjoying watching the people. Will and Zach talked about people they knew at their respective schools, and I just absorbed the high school drama without really saying much.

I took them to a diner where the waiters and waitresses sang, something both of them found mostly amusing, unless the performer was bad, in which case they found them annoying. “I was here with Robbie when Jordan Pfinster called me to invite me to dinner. That was the night I remembered meeting my father.”

“Wow,” Will said. “You were here?”

I nodded. “We went out to see Jordan for dinner, and he gave me that box of my father’s stuff.” We finished our late-night breakfast, and then took a cab back to the Durango. Zach offered to let me drive, which I’m sure was Will’s doing, but I declined. I sat in the back seat, strangely content to just go along for the ride.

We’d just crossed into New Jersey when Zach looked at me, our eyes connecting through the rear-view mirror. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I responded.

“My dad gave Gathan dog tags for Aaron Hayes. He told us to ask Stefan about him. Do you know his story?”

How interesting that Aaron would come up for a second time tonight, the first time in my own mind, and now here. “I do, but I think Will can explain it to you as well as I can,” I said, subtly giving Will permission to do that.

“Cool,” Zach said, and looked at Will, who just nodded. We got back to the hotel and I went back to my room, while they went back to Will’s room. I felt like I had finally turned the corner on my grief, and even though I’d felt that way before, this time, I actually believed it was true.

October 28, 2001

Ramsey, NJ

Zach and I sat in the suite, eating breakfast. We’d ordered room service, determined to prolong what little time we had left together. “You never told me about Aaron Hayes,” he said.

“I got distracted,” I told him with a leer. He chuckled. “It might actually be better if I showed it to you.”

“Showed me what?”

“One of my relatives left a diary, talking about Aaron. He was your uncle, I think,” I said, even as I shoveled food into my mouth.

“So when are you going to show me this diary?”

“The next time I see you,” I said, being coy.

“And when is that?” he asked.

“When you invite me to come visit you again,” I said.

He nodded casually, kind of freaking me out, acting like he didn’t care when I came to see him again, then pulled out a card and handed it to me. It was his football schedule. “That’s what I’m doing. If you can make it to another game that would be great.”

“Just one?” I teased.

“Dude, I’d love it if you came to all of them, but you have a life, and you have better things to do than flying out to New-fucking-Jersey every weekend,” he said.

“You’re right,” I said, “I do have a life, but I don’t know if there’s anything better than spending time with you.” He shot me his grin, the one that was so much like Robbie’s, the one that made him look irresistible. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We stood up and walked to the door, but he stopped me before we left. “Thanks,” he said, but the word was magnified by his look, and by his eyes, which just bored into my soul.

“For what?” I asked, kind of surprised at how intense he was being.

“For the Durango, for being my friend, for having confidence in me, and for being such a good fuck,” he said. I smiled as I chuckled.

“You’re welcome. For all those things. And thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for?” he asked, confused.

“For the jersey, for being my friend, for showing me an amazing time this weekend, for helping me have my dad’s back, and for being such a good fuck,” I said sincerely.

“You’re welcome,” he said, then got nervous.

“What?”

He sighed. “I’m worried that you’ll go back, and people will talk to you about me, and tell you that I’m evil, and selfish, and an asshole.” I looked at him intently, and felt my feelings for him soar, as if they could get higher. He was opening up to me, exposing his emotional soul to me, in what had to be one of the most intimate things he could probably do.

“I’ll go back, and they may say those things, but I doubt it, and even if they do, I’m smart enough to tell them to fuck off,” I said firmly. We both knew that the ‘they’ he was referring to was Gathan, but I’d already handled him on this, and I wasn’t going to put up with his shit. He kissed me again, and it went on for a long time, and even though I was the one who ended it, I replaced the kiss with a massive hug. We pulled apart and both of us had to wipe tears out of our eyes.

We composed ourselves enough to go downstairs and deal with the others. Wally and Clara were waiting for us, as was my father. He looked different today: stronger. “You take care of yourself, and call us every other day,” Clara said to Zach. He gave her a big hug.

“I will,” he promised.

“Keep your head on straight,” Wally said, almost a growl. Zach nodded, didn’t say anything to him, and I kind of expected Wally to hug him, but he didn’t. Instead, Zach walked up to my dad.

“Thanks for the dinner last night, and the trip to the diner. That was pretty cool,” he said.

“Thanks for all you did for me, and for showing us such a good time,” Dad said. “Come visit us in California whenever you want.”

“I may just do that,” he said. Zach fist bumped me, making it seem like we were just buds in front of his parents. “We’ll talk.”

“We’ll talk,” I confirmed. We got into the limo while he sauntered over to his Durango. It was painful to watch him leave, but I kept up appearances and didn’t say or do anything. We drove to the airport in relative silence, which was just fine with me, and maintained the silence until we were in the air.

“You coming back out here soon?” Wally asked me.

“I don’t know. Probably, if I can work it out,” I said.

“Just don’t distract him,” he admonished.

“I’m not distracting him, I’m encouraging him,” I said abruptly.

“And I’m sure he appreciates your support,” Clara said, intervening. Wally didn’t say anything, so I took that chance to go back and nap until we landed in Claremont. I roused myself to come out and say goodbye to them, then settled back in to enjoy the flight home, with just my father for company.

“I’m starting to see why Robbie set up those trusts like he did,” Dad said. “I wonder if he saw the dynamic between Zach and Wally.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Did Frank pressure Robbie like that?”

“I don’t think so,” Dad said. “So we get home pretty early. Is Tony coming up tonight?”

I thought about that, thought about being with Tony, and it didn’t excite me at all. I didn’t want him; I only wanted one guy, and I’d just left him behind in New Jersey. “I don’t know,” I said.

“When are you going back to New Jersey?” he asked. It had only been a few hours since I’d left Zach, but I already missed him like crazy.

“Friday,” I said impulsively, and the thought of seeing Zach again in five days made me smile.

“Maybe I’ll fly out with you again, and then spend that week in Connecticut,” he said.

“That’s fine. Only this time, can we go, just the two of us, without Wally and Clara?”

“We can,” he said, smiling at me.