Beginning of the End - 1. Beginning of the End

It is my firm belief that the concept of news is one of the worst inventions ever created by man. Sure, there are times when news can be wonderful, such as the birth of a baby or the announcement of engagement but news has been nothing but trouble for me for the past ten, going on eleven, years. When I was eleven years old, my grandmother passed away. When I was barely sixteen, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. When I was nineteen I announced to the world that I was gay, and the rest of my family rejected me. My mother stood by me, however, which is one reason, among many, why she and I have such a close relationship.

All of that isn’t to suggest that all news is terrible news; for example, my father’s announcement that he had scored the motor and various other parts for my future car, the old Chevy, was good news. That meant that I would have a running vehicle before graduation.

Several months following my mother’s diagnosis, she had surgery to remove the afflicted organ. Five years following this surgery with a clean bill of health, she was declared as cured. I took her out to dinner at a fine restaurant in Pt. Pleasant, along the Jersey shore, to celebrate.

That’s just it though. I took her to dinner, meaning that my father did not. He couldn’t, you know. It’s kind of difficult for a man who was dead for over four of those five years to do so. Not even my mother being cured could sway my opinion of news in light of learning of my father’s death at the much-longed-for age of seventeen. It’s funny how so many women wish they could be seventeen again - there’s even a song about it that plays again and again at the store. Personally, I would give everything if only that year of my life could be forever erased from memory.

Now, it’s not like I wasn’t happy for my mother. Quite the contrary, I was ecstatic. If it had been a month later I would have been able to purchase a bottle of merlot, her favorite. Maybe that’s why I was so excited about Halloween last year and supplied the alcohol, having been unable to properly celebrate such a momentous event because of a single month. I guess that’s America for you, always trumpeting being the free world when it isn’t really free at all.

Now I’m rambling. The point of these depressing thoughts on news is because of two new doozies that have come up recently, the first being that my boyfriend, Jake, broke up with me.

This one is actually quite interesting. He broke up with me after being upset with me that my car would not run without oil, or so it seemed. Actually, he was upset that I spent more time with the car than him; he once caught me talking to it. I’m sure it seemed that way to the uninformed, but when I told him exactly what it was that I was doing, he called me crazy and demanded that I spend more time with him. As if going to clubs in the city and calling in sick when he was upset over something pretty stupid - I think he had a zit or something - was not spending enough time with him. I snapped and told him to go fuck himself.

Would that mean that I broke it off? Maybe that would explain why I felt no remorse, but it wouldn’t explain why I felt as though I should give romance a break for a while - at least until I could figure out how to get my life back on track.

Why do I have to get my life back on track? It feels like it’s spinning out of control with the second bit of depressing news, which should really not be so depressing considering I truly couldn’t be happier for her. Who wouldn’t be? The UCLA graduate program is very prestigious, I’m told.

She’d told me all about it over dinner last night. She’d been talking about how much this would change her life for months, and I guess until she told me about it, I hadn’t realized what an impact this would have on mine. Jo and I have been friends since we were babies. I once wondered that, if things had been different, if I hadn’t been gay, if we could have dated. When I came out to her just before graduation, she said she was relieved because she thought the reason I was hanging around her so much at the time was that I was developing a crush on her. Actually, I was just taking the time to note her reactions to certain things before making the ultimate decision to come clean. Around that time, she and I got closer than ever and started doing more things together, such as shopping in New Hope.

This leads me to the reason she and I were heading there in the Monte Carlo now: She wanted to get a few things for the house in California that her grandmother had given to her.

“Oh my god this is so exciting!” she exclaimed with the smile that had been painted on her face since we met up at the restaurant the night before.

“Wait a minute, what the fuck?” I replied, incredibly confused. She sat there staring at me with a raised eyebrow, expecting an explanation for my outburst. “Did ‘JoAnne Tomboy’ just say, ‘Oh my god?’” She responded by punching my arm. I just laughed as I stared through my sunglasses at the bridge in front of us that led into Pennsylvania, my right hand clenching the top of the wheel as I rested my head on my fist with my elbow resting on the top of the door.

“Well sooooor-rey if I never thought in a million years that I would be accepted!” she exclaimed.

“I guess Mr. Valmont…”

“Doctor,” she quickly corrected.

“Excuse me, I guess the good doctor,” I emphasized with sarcasm, “really enjoyed your interview.”

“I guess so,” she said, sighing contentedly and looking out beyond the long black hood of the car at nothing in particular.

“Did you service him?” She punched me again, even harder. Hard enough to cause me to swerve and scare the crap out of the soccer mom in the minivan to our right. I couldn’t help but laugh to the point of tears while she sat in her seat with steam pouring from her ears. “Oh man, you’re gonna miss me.”

“The hell I will!” I gave her a knowing look, “Okay maybe I’ll miss you, and Jersey, but I still can’t fucking wait to leave!”

“Oh come now, you can’t be serious.”

“And why not?” she inquired.

“Who in their right mind would miss fucking New Jersey? It’s a shithole. Always has been and always will be,” I said with a hint if disgust as I dropped a few coins into the collection basket of the toll booth that is just inside of the Pennsylvania state line, also known as the Delaware River. Fucking shithole.

“True, but it’s our shithole. We grew up in it, so of course I’ll miss it.”

The rest of the drive was in silence as she put her feet up on the dashboard and I continued to navigate the car along our usual route to New Hope. It wasn’t long before I was throwing the car in park and paying the parking lot attendant and we were hitting the streets. It was unusually cold for mid April, and so I had my hoodie on and Jo had on the sweater that UCLA had sent to her as part of her acceptance package, brandishing a large UCLA logo on her tits.

With Jo on my left, we walked down the sidewalk. I wasn’t really paying much attention to our surroundings; I was almost deaf to the cars and people around us.

Suddenly my focus was centered upon two figures walking ahead of us, causing me to not notice what Jo was saying to me as she stopped to peer into a bookstore. The figures disappeared into another shop.

I sighed and looked into the window of the bookstore, looking specifically at Jo’s reflection and the UCLA sweater. It’s interesting how a small article of clothing - literally size ‘small’- could have so much of an affect on someone. For her, it meant accelerating her career before she hit thirty. For me, as selfish as it sounds, it meant possibly losing the only best friend I had ever had. I have a few guy friends, including Ricky, Tony, and the others, but none of them are as close to me as Jo. I’d be selling myself short if I said that I didn’t respond well to change, having been through three traumatic events before I was a legal adult. I’d also be lying if I said that the prospect of not having Jo down the street - or across town - anymore didn’t scare me, and leave me feeling alone already.

I then noticed an oddity in my own appearance. Since the break-up I started to wear my old watch again; this morning, however, Jo was yelling at me to get ready, and I guess I’d mistakenly put on the one that Jake had given me on New Year’s Eve. Since I rarely used the analogue function of my watch, it took me a few more seconds to determine that this entirely analogue watch was telling me that the time was then 12:04 pm.

Why did I suddenly get the sense of déjà vu? I was about to scold Jo for forcing me to make that mistake, but she started pulling me away from the bookstore. I abandoned the question and continued to walk with her as we approached the shop into which the two figures had disappeared. As I looked ahead of us, I noticed something about the crowd. Or, I noticed someone - a young woman, to be exact. She had long, flowing, straight black hair. It was so long that it seemed to reach the small of her back. She looked at me as I did likewise, and I was entranced by her chestnut eyes surrounded by pale, yet soft skin. She moved her eyes to Jo, as did I. I watched as Jo’s eyes lit up and she ran up to hug this strange woman. As I approached the two women I discovered that Jo was telling her all about her acceptance to UCLA. I cleared my throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jo began. “Jenny, this is Ryan. Ryan, this is Jenny, my lab partner this semester,” she introduced us.

“Pleasure to meet you, Ryan,” Jenny spoke to me in a soft voice.

“Likewise,” I replied. She smiled sweetly and looked back to Jo, who took her to the side and started raving excitedly about her upcoming adventures in California.

I, however, allowed my curiosity to lead my gaze over to the shop where the figures from before were now standing at the sales counter. As it turned out the shop was an ice cream parlor, and one of the figures was undoubtedly Jake.

I was going to wonder at what a coincidence it was that he was here at the same time I was, but I guess I should have expected it since his music shop was around the corner. As I continued, for whatever reason, to stare at him, I finally recognized the guy he was with. One would think that the Latino features and buzz cut would have obviously pointed out to me that his companion was his ex, Andre. I supposed he wasn’t an ‘ex’ anymore. Still, I felt a little jealous when Andre laughed at something Jake said and put his hand on Jake’s arm, standing even closer to him. Maybe I was a little angry that Jake was able to shrug me off so easily and go running back to his former lover, but I guess I had no right since I had shrugged the little shit off the day I told him to go fuck himself, and elected not to try out another relationship for a while.

I was pulled from my thoughts as Jo pulled me down the street, furthering my déjà vu as Jenny joined us and Jo said, “Come boy, it’s lunchtime!”

I decided that I shouldn’t be dwelling on the past, and should concentrate on the present and future. After all, my little princess is going on to bigger and better things. I would never say as much to her, as she had already thrown a spoon at me for mentioning someone from Rowan and has already punched me, hard, for suggesting that she used less-than-innocent measures to get into UCLA.

It’s a wonder that she still keeps me around.

“So Ryan, are you going to graduate school as well?” Jenny inquired.

“No, this asshole got his associates and never went back to school,” Jo replied for me, “which really disappointed me.”

“Sorry mother,” I responded. She hit me and Jenny got a big laugh out of our antics.

“Well I’m honored that you can find humor in his crass tone, traitor,” Jo said to Jenny.

“I’m sorry, I’ve just never seen two people so close, are you…” she trailed off.

“Oh hell no, he’s my gay best friend,” Jo replied.

“Oh thanks, tell the whole fucking world, why don’t you?” I practically bit her head off. Jenny seemed to find more humor in the situation.

Jo looked to her and asked, “You don’t mind do you?”

“Oh god no, if I minded that Ryan was gay then my cousin in California would have my head,” Jenny replied.

That was a relief. The subject of my sexuality didn’t come up very often, so I got nervous when it did - about-to-throw-up nervous, sometimes. Luckily – for the present company – I was far too hungry to do as much. I was hungry enough that the three menus tucked under our waitress’ arm as she approached us looked good enough to eat.

The two weeks following our shopping adventure were like being in prison for me. Okay, maybe not actual prison, but the loading dock at Tony’s store sure felt like it. Being that it was mid-April already, we were behind in getting our summer stock in and out on the floor - something about shipping delays with our suppliers. Anyway, that meant my crew and I were going to be working more than forty hours per week for at least the next month. Don’t get me wrong, I love the extra cash, but believe me when I say that emptying one twenty-five foot truck per day for two weeks straight and then putting the merchandise on the floor almost immediately is back-breaking work. Some of this crap is patio furniture! Needless to say, the next two weeks flew by so fast that I had no time to help Jo pack, and our remaining time together was very short-lived.

Tony let me know quite vividly that I was more or less having my way with him by calling out on the day that Jo was flying out to the west coast, two weeks into the busy month we were having. He let me do it, though, knowing that it would be a while before I saw her again.

Since she had had to sell her Jeep to save on moving costs, she needed me to give her a ride to the airport. Most of it was spent in silence, with her looking out her window constantly. She said that she wanted to get a good look at everything that she had always taken for granted, as she would not be seeing it again until Christmas. We didn’t speak until I pulled up the main access road where taxis and busses were sprawled out everywhere, getting people where they needed to go.

“Okay, so when you get back to f-town, what are you going to do?” she asked.

“Pick up Roxy from your mother’s house,” I responded unenthusiastically as I threw my right hand onto the back of her headrest. I hit the trunk button so that she could grab her only suitcase. The rest of her clothes were already in Texas and would be at her grandmother’s old house in a couple of days’ time. I watched her through my sunglasses as she checked her luggage in with the airline attendant who was taking luggage from outside the airport. She got back into the car and looked at me.

“When will I see Roxy again?”

“When I drive her to Cali so we can continue our 4^th of July annual tradition,” I answered with a weak smile, thinking of how terrible that drive was going to be with a little dog like Roxanne.

“Good answer,” she replied, and kissed me sweetly on the cheek before exiting my car in New Jersey for the final time, and walking calmly into the airport terminal.

I sat there and watched her walk away until she stepped on the escalator that would take her down to the waiting areas for all of the flights coming and going. It would be the world’s biggest lie if I didn’t say it was killing me that I invested at least half of my life in that woman, and now she was taking it to California.

A knock on my window startled me from my thoughts. I looked over and saw a police officer, telling me to open the window.

“Sir, if you’re done with your business here, please move your vehicle. You’re blocking the taxi and bus traffic,” the cute young cop said to me as my eyes fell to the bulge in his pants.

“Sure thing officer,” I said as I put the car into drive, “you should transfer to Flemington, so I can watch your cute ass patrolling Main Street.” With that, I hit the gas, screeching the rear tires a little as I pulled out from between two yellow Ford taxis, and then let the engine roar down the airport access road and back onto the interstate, heading to the only home that I ever knew.

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