18 Weeks of Twoey - 118. Week Seventeen Saturday, December 27, 2014: TLC

So wise, so young, they say, do never live long.

Richard III - WS

***

Twoey was gently rubbing my back. It felt so good to have my boyfriend rub my back. I was still groggy. I thought of opening my eyes, but they were refusing to do what I had asked of them. Then I realized it was a dream I was awakening from. Twoey was not my boyfriend! But someone actually was rubbing my back. I slowly lifted my head but couldn’t see anything. My eyes were stuck shut! I began to be aware of a dull throbbing in my head and suddenly – I was going to be SICK.

Breaking through the crusted gunk, my eyes shot open and I was nearly blinded by the light. I lurched up but two hands firmly directed my body over the edge of my bed where a cleaning bucket was waiting. My body tried to puke, my stomach churned inside out, but nothing came up. It didn’t prevent it from spasming again and again, though!

“It figures. I didn’t think you’d have any more left in you.”

“Tommy? Tommy, what’s going on?”

“Relax, David. It’s 12:30 in the afternoon. You’re just waking up from spending most of the night hugging the toilet and heaving your guts out. When I figured you were done, I took off your pukey boxers, cleaned you up as much as I could, dragged and lifted you in bed, with this pail down there in case it was needed. Look brother, I’ve got stuff to do today. There’s a holiday bash at the rink around seven. Oh, you owe me ‘bout a thousand bucks too, for not only being your nurse but also your fucking secretary this morning.”

“Huh?”

He picked up a piece of paper with lots of notes on it.

“Well, I’ve received and answered texts and calls from Chuck, Gary, Twoey, Sam, Twoey, Chuck, Deena, Nels, Twoey, Gary, Chuck, Sam, Gary, Twoey, Randy, Twoey, Chuck, Twoey, and ...um Twoey’s MOM in fucking Albany.”

“Wait, what?!”

“I suppose they all called Gary and he gave them my number because yours was so very not good.”

“What? Why?”

“From what Gary told me, the new decoration, over there on the wall, was somethin’ you created with your phone last night.”

I looked over and saw a pattern on the wall and a smashed phone – my phone – on the floor beneath it.

“I did that to the wall?”

“Hehe ...well yeah ...but it was only after you glugged all this vodka.” He held up Donny’s bottle, totally empty.

“What??”

“Well I wasn’t here, y’know ...and as hard as this is to believe about my brother, the stories I’ve been told seem to say you had a meltdown at the rink. Then you said some nasty shit to all your friends. The same friends who thought enough about you to pay a visit a couple hours later. Right here in this fucking room. I guess they waited too long, because by the time they arrived, you were upset that there was no more vodka in the house. By the way, someday you’re gonna tell me how there even was vodka in the house. But, since you were fucking out of your mind, you decided to fight with Gary and, let me check my list. Oh yeah, and with Nels, Donny and some kid named Cory. You were about to include Sam when you passed out – into his arms I might add. The arms of the same guy you were about to punch in the face. Anyway, it was then Gary called me. I had to get a ride home and then they entrusted your body to Tommy’s Loving Care. You’re just fucking lucky that I wasn’t getting any last night.”

I dropped my head into my hands. Tommy told me to stay put and left. He returned with a small glass of water that was fizzing with, he said, baking soda.

“Here, Twoey’s mom said this would help with your headache and pukey feelings when you woke up.”

I didn’t ask, but simply drank it straight down.

“Now, I think you need a long hot shower to totally clean all the stink off you. And brush your teeth with Drano or something before you even get into the shower. I already picked out your clothes and set them on my bed, so they wouldn’t get infected. I also suggest nothing but ginger ale and those white crackers for the rest of the day until your stomach chooses to join the rest of your body.”

I blankly stared at the wall.

“I won’t need any clothes, I’m just gonna shoot myself in the shower.”

“Nah, too much blood. And I know they’ll make me clean up your mess. Instead of that, why don’t you just go over to Twoey’s?”

“Twoey’s? Are you fucking crazy?”

“Well, I guess he is, because he was here this morning and after he took one look at you, suggested you celebrate your new status with him, at his house. And use my cologne, yours sucks.”

“Huh?”

“Jesus David, what DO you remember from last night?”

“I only remember getting splitting head pains at the rink as everyone was yelling at me and crowding around. I was suffocating and had to get out of there! I ran home to take some headache pills, then found that bottle of vodka. I remember starting to chug it to just erase everything. I guess it worked because that’s all I remember. What did they tell you, Tommy?”

“Let’s see. Number One, I seem to have a brother who is gay. Number Two, that same brother is apparently one lucky fuck because the bottle that he drank all gone was only half a liter. According to Twoey’s mom, if it was a full liter bottle, we wouldn’t be having this little conversation right now. I’d be picking out funeral clothes, you stupid fuck!!! DO YOU FUCKING HATE ME?!

Oh yeah, Number Three, after they all got here, you had new courage. You yelled at Donny and told him never to call you again and threw your phone against the wall creating this new work of art. Maybe they’ll stick it in the fucking art gallery! Number Four, your friend Donny came over to – let me get this straight – Gary and Sam said to hug you but Donny said to only get you calmed down and into bed or something. There seems to be a conflict of eyewitness testimony there. Number Five, Gary came over to help Donny and you threw a punch at him...”

“At Gary?”

“Yeah, well, no harm done because you were fading fast. So as far as I can figure, it was at this point witnesses heard you yelling something and watched as you ran toward Sam with your fist clenched and cocked and fell forward into his arms, which were raised in self-defense. You had left the world.”

“Oh my fucking God. I've really gotta shoot myself. I can’t face my friends ever again. Ever.”

He reached over and half-hugged me.

“It’ll be okay big brother, really. Those were your friends who called me today. And it was your best friend Gary who was here early this morning to check up on you too. They were all there and heard everything last night. And do you know what they remembered? Their best friend had a breakdown and they were scared shitless for him. For some stupid reason, they love you. So while you’re in the shower, I’m gonna call your friends, so they can stop worrying and fucking bugging me. Now go brush your teeth and take a shower! And brush your teeth FIRST!!”

I was drying off when Tommy came in. “Hey, I’m leaving to visit Barbara Nelson and then, after hanging at her house a bit, we’re gonna party at the rink. Are you sure you’re gonna be OK?”

Barbara Nelson ...Donny’s sister. Yikes!

“I’ll be OK. I’m just going to recuperate here.”

“No, no! Go to Twoey's as soon as you can. Really. He wants you to help him set up for his bash tomorrow. Come on, promise!!”

“Probably. I guess there’s not much else to do.”

But I knew I couldn’t do that. I could never see him again ...or any of my friends. I decided to stay here and tie up a few loose ends.

I pretended to start getting dressed as Tommy left. Then I took my clothes off again. I figured maybe meditation would help point me in the right direction. Maybe Danny had some advice. At this point, he was my last hope – my very last hope.

I really didn’t think I would even be able to get to my healing place, everything considered, but I did. I mounted those steps like a prisoner approaching the gallows. I looked out over the Pacific Ocean crashing into those rock-islands for maybe the last time.

I sat on the couch and Danny was soon in my lap. He held my head with his hands and kissed me like he really meant it.

“I love you, David. I always have.”

“I know.”

“I have one final request. Try to connect my brother with Donny.”

“Final request?”

“Yes. The next time I see you, we will be forever together.”

And then I was awake. Well, his message was plain enough. He only confirmed what I was thinking. The first thing I did was check the phone book to find Chuck’s house phone.

“It’s David.”

“OMG! How are you feeling?”

“Like someone bashed me in the head and shit in my mouth. I had to call you this way because, according to my brother, I sort of destroyed my phone last night.”

“How?”

“You don’t want to know. I’m honestly sorry for what I said at the rink yesterday. Isn’t Curt your boyfriend?”

“Not any more. We broke up last night.”

“No! Why?”

“He said he’s not really gay and is starting to have feelings for some girl. He doesn’t want to have sex with boys anymore. He says it was just a phase to get off. He said he wanted to come to the high school completely straight. I guess he and Mark had some big life-changing conversation and both came to the same conclusion about their futures. It really sucks. He was fun to have sex with. I’m not sure I was really in love with him though, so it’s probably for the best.”

“Call Donny.”

“Donny Nelson?”

“Yes. He might need you right now. He’ll really need a friend tomorrow. He’s a wonderful guy, Chuck. Someone worth investing feelings in.”

“Did something bad happen to him?”

“It will. Call him and be there for him. I think you’ll never regret it.”

“David, you’re not even making any sense.”

“I have to go now, Chuck. Again, you know I didn’t mean any of what I yelled at you at the rink. I was having a little breakdown is all. Hey, I’ve gotta go. Bye.” I hung up.

OK Danny, part one of your request is done. It’s up to them now. I’ll move on to part two.

I spent an hour or so cleaning the bathroom and my bedroom of any ugliness I had created. Everything looked pretty good. I didn’t want to leave Aunt Sarah with a mess. It’ll probably be bad enough when they find me. I decided to take a nap before I did any further thinking and planning.

I woke up about a half-hour later. I remembered I had been dreaming of Twoey again!

I spent the whole rest of the afternoon thinking. Here I was, isolated. This is exactly what I was so worried about and, you know what? It wasn’t so bad. The upside was, I didn’t have to conform to anyone’s expectations for me. I could be me and do anything I wanted without someone saying, “What’s this?” like fucking Gary did yesterday.

I tried to resolve all the anger that had built up. It was still there, but I think it was the anger and those searing head pains that made me sorta snap. I still didn’t know what to do about it. I needed a plan. My final plan.

I decided to take a walk. After dressing warmly and bundling up, I walked away from Gary’s house and took the long way around but ended up, as usual, in the park by the lake – my lake. I stood on a rock over a little cove, on the opposite side of the beach from where we usually swim. I knew no one would see me there, if anyone even bothered to look. There was a dead seagull being pushed to and fro by the lapping cold gray waves. My seagull. The one I talked to a couple days ago. I spoke to him again.

“The short and joyful life you had is gone. You no longer have a use, so the water has called you back. The water was your life. It supported you. You were drawn to it. It calmed you and fed you. And now, it has called you back.”

I pondered. How was I affected by the death of the seagull?

Not at all.

How would it have affected me if the seagull were gay?

Not at all.

Suppose I was a tiny microbe somewhere in my body. What would I know about David? Would I know his hair was unmanageable when it rained? Would I know he was a shortstop? Would I know he had fucked Donny?

I thought about how it would feel to be that microbe. Would David care if I, the microbe, loved the microbe who happened to live next to me? Would David make sure some Moses Microbe presented all the other microbes with a set of commandments? Would some bunch of nomadic microbes pronounce that David was their God, even though they had no means of understanding the complex body they were living in?

Have you ever thought about the vastness of the universe? I mean really thought about it? Actually done the mathematical calculations? Do you realize that if David was sunbathing in the yard and a bird flitted from one tree to another 3 yards over, the little microbe we’ve been talking about would mathematically have a better chance of understanding that than a man on this planet would have of understanding the universe?

It began to sink in how so fucking insignificant we were and yet some people talk about a God like He’s their buddy. Do you realize how unbelievably naive that is? Truly, unfuckingbelievably naive? So, I figured, what difference would it make, to anything at all, if I kissed Alex or fucked Donny or grabbed BG McCane’s gun and blew my own fucking head right off! None at all. Not a fucking bit of difference!

And then, right when I was getting a moment of clarity, that fucking headache began coming back! But I didn’t let it prevent me from squatting on the rock to stare into my lake. I remained there for well over an hour, until it began to get dark. What did I do while I was staring all that time? I made peace with my lake and peace with myself. I had passed that little barrier we all have within us which is supposed to protect our bodies from ourselves. I now knew what I had to do.

When it became dark, I headed home. I slowly walked the long way around so I wouldn’t pass any of my former friends’ houses. I got more and more sad. Shit. What an existence. What a way to greet 2015. I had fifteen good years on this planet and, if I let it come, my sixteenth year would begin the really awful remainder of my life. The short and joyful life I had was gone. Just like my seagull. I knew I couldn’t ever face that long and unhappy life in front of me, especially alone. I needed to heed Danny this time. I must have missed whatever small chance he thought I had, when he originally gave me his warning. I couldn’t really think of what that opportunity might have been, but I clearly missed it. I knew now I would complete my life cycle with the fifteen good years. Just like the seagull, my circle had been completed. It wasn’t like anyone was gonna miss me or anything. Walking in the cold air made me see this with startling clarity.

I had no future.

Back home, I was getting hungry, so I wandered into the kitchen and decided to eat some of those white crackers Tommy mentioned. I sipped some ginger ale and was happy everything stayed down. I noticed the drawer by the phone. Opening it, there was the money we were given for food or whatever. It didn’t look like much was missing.

After I finished doing that, I slowly climbed up to my room and sat at the desk. I noticed the framed torn dollar. Twoey’s dollar. Then I read the little verse again:

Hopeless Attraction

...

We were destined to fail

We were destined to fall

We wounded our feelings

We murdered our love

Should have hit that third rail

To have ended it all

...Should have ended it all

Yes.

Sam's little song suddenly had meaning for me.

You know by now that I’m a rational person. This journey to Danny would be final. There would be no do-overs – no take-backs. I had to be sure. I began to consider all the alternatives to terminating myself. Then I slowly crossed-off each one in my mind. Every alternative was worse than simply not being here. I knew I was molested as a child and I knew who did it. But that really didn’t have any bearing on this situation at all. And so I thought about my ‘situation’ for a bit. I never thought I’d be in this situation. I mean, people kill themselves if they’re seriously depressed, or if they’ve been bullied to death or picked on to the point where their self-esteem has vanished. You know – all hopelessness kind of stuff. But here I was, rationally coming to the same conclusion, as precise as a Euclidean proof. This is what I had to do. I guess it was what happened when you were smart. This was not an emotional or impulsive act. It was simple logic. Ergo: there was no need to be alive anymore. None.

Now there were only two more things left to consider. Should I leave a note and how should I accomplish the act.

When you leave a note it’s to say things like I can’t take the bullying anymore or other stuff to maybe help other people in the future. That didn’t apply to me. You know, I couldn’t just say, “Q.E.D.”

You can also say you’re sorry for hurting family or friends. Of course that wouldn’t apply to me either. My friends didn’t exist anymore and either would my family, once they were embarrassed to find out about me. So, no note. But I began to feel just a little bad for Tommy. He was more than family to me. ‘Family’ meant distant beings who were somehow genetically related. Family was just a coincidence of nature. My aunt cooked for me, but I could cook for myself. My father paid the bills, I guess. But other than that requirement, I can’t remember ever being close to him. All I can say about that woman is I hoped I had been adopted. I had never felt any love for her. Liz said we were close when I was a little boy, back in that forgotten era of my life. But from the part of my life that I can actually remember, she was just a name on a door. A door to the room she was hardly ever in. Grampa was nice to me and sent me money, but I didn’t know him well enough to have any inner feelings. No, only Tommy did that. Only Tommy was what I could call my family. I had to make sure he knew this was not his fault. So I made a slight alteration about a note. I took out a piece of paper, but only wrote a few words.

“I love you Tommy. This had nothing to do with you. David,”

I went downstairs, placing it in the money drawer, realizing he’d be in there at some point to get funds. That made me feel a little better.

Walking back up to my room, I began to think of a way to do it. I didn’t want to hurt. I wasn’t angry with myself. There was no reason to cause myself pain. All I wanted to do was fade away. That’s when I remembered a scene in one of The Godfather movies, where they convinced the old gangster in prison to open his wrists. They told him how the ancient Romans did it. Sit in a tub of warm water and simply bleed out. No pain and the mess is contained in the tub. Of course the cut would be painful at first. Too bad I drank Donny’s bottle of Vodka. I wouldn’t have felt the cut so much. I wouldn’t have had to worry about a hangover, like the one I had this morning, either. I’d have been with Danny by then. I didn’t think you got hangovers in heaven.

And so, there were the bare bones of my plan. David’s final plan. All that was left was figuring out when I should do it. Poetically, it should be New Years Eve. Neatly wrap up 2014 as the last year of David. 2015 would start a clean slate with me not there anymore. The only problem was there were too many days left. I’d never make it three days without someone making contact with me.

I couldn’t do it tonight because I was unsure when Tommy would be returning. I didn’t want to go through all the trouble and then get discovered before I was dead. No, that had too many ugly possible side effects.

I knew Tommy had a big all-day bash tomorrow. All my former friends would be focused on Twoey’s party, and so they wouldn’t be a factor. I decided to do it tomorrow after Tommy left.

I needed to get the tools and everything ready today. Sunday would be it! Sunday would be my final day. I looked around the house and found a great box-cutter in the toolbox of the man who lived here. I hid it over the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Tommy would never be pawing around up there.

I made a sandwich and drank some soda. No sense worrying about what it did to my body now ...hehe. Too bad there was no Mountain Dew around the house. Donny would have gotten a chuckle over that. One little smile for him. I knew he would take this hard. The poor guy had been trying to steer me clear of this very moment. I’m so glad Danny told me to have Chuck go to him. Chuck will be good for Donny and Donny will be good for Chuck. That would be a little bonus for my sacrifice. Some little bit of good would come from it. I checked the calendar. For some unknown reason, I counted the weeks. Twoey had been in my life for seventeen weeks. Seventeen weeks of Twoey! My last seventeen weeks on Earth. It was time for bed, my last sleep. And there was no phone to disturb me.

Perfect!

Twoey

Last night when they called me, I had to sit down or I was going to collapse. I was seriously worried. I was trembling all over. I knew he could have had alcohol poisoning. I didn’t want to call 911, so I called Mom. She was very concerned about David. I gave her Tommy's number. I was just sooo worried he would die from it. She called me right back and said he hadn’t had enough, but that he would be plenty sick. Then this morning I went over. I had to see it for myself. Seeing my Angel sprawled out naked on his bed, so helpless looking, almost made me puke.

Tommy had been up with him all night. He told me Gary had stopped in this morning to check on him too. I told him to get some rest and I sat with David for a few hours until Tommy was awake again. During that time, he never moved a muscle. I had to press my ear to his back to make sure he was still breathing. I spent ten or fifteen minutes lying on him like that. While there with him, My mind went over everything I heard about last night. Gary said David was gay and hanging out with some swimmer! WTF? How did I not know about this? He was struggling with confronting his orientation while we were connected. Then once I had a boyfriend, he came out? Now he suddenly had a boyfriend? Some swimmer? But then he ran away, got drunk, was going to punch the swimmer for God’s sake! They say there’s a fine line between love and hate – but shit! David got this drunk? I know David doesn’t drink. Shit, he doesn’t drink anything but water! All of this was so unlike his normal behavior. To me, that could only mean he had a traumatic experience of some kind. It couldn’t have been about the abuse; he discovered that too long ago. Something must have happened to him for this behavior to suddenly spring up. When Tommy came back in, it was about eleven. I asked him some questions, trying to discover a clue, but nothing made sense.

About two hours after I had returned home, I received a text from Tommy. He said David didn’t remember anything after the point where he chugged the vodka. Tommy said he filled him in from the stories he’d heard about the rest of the night. Apparently my Angel was very depressed.

Again I told Tommy to tell David to come over here once he felt better. Maybe we could talk things out while we set up for the party and I could make my Angel happy again. I waited all day, but he never came over. Nobody had heard one peep from him either, I checked around. Gary said he went over again, later in the afternoon, but no one was home at David’s house. Of course I heard about the pieces of his phone on his bedroom wall, but Gary only lives a couple doors down. I hated to think of David just sitting somewhere all alone. I knew from experience he was a little dangerous when he thought for a long time all alone.

Then I remembered the lake. I knew he often went there to think, so I decided to check for him down by the lake. I looked all around the park and the beach, but he wasn’t there. It was beginning to get dark, so I went back to his house, but he wasn’t there either. That was worrisome.

I decided to go out tomorrow to see if I could find him. Maybe I could enlist Gary or Sam to help.