CONTROL
Come on, sonnyboy, you can do this.
Fuck, somebody bumped into him. He’s tensing up, he’s. . .no, he’s all right.
Take a deep breath. Not Justin. Me.
His head’s up, he’s starting to smile. I feel my face responding, smiling back
at him. I feel my arms open up and reach out to him. He throws himself into my
arms with a laugh only slightly tremulous, we hug each other, laugh out loud. I
tell him I knew he would make it. A lie, but he needed to hear it.
Now he’s walking away, alone, on his own. Now I know he can make it, and so does
he. Yet I need to watch him for a while, so I follow along behind, keeping
plenty of pedestrians between us in case he turns around. After two blocks,
three, I let him disappear; he’ll be all right.
Will I be all right?
Who is this stranger, this alien Brian Kinney? Can’t be me.
We are NOT having a relationship. I’ve made that clear, I’m pretty sure he
understands. No matter who this alien Brian Kinney might be, I’m still in
control. Ninety percent of the time anyway.
I walk back to the jeep, get in, start the engine. Then turn it off. I’m not
going to that fucking phony awards banquet, I never intended to. I could have
told Linds and Mel, but they’re the ones who got me into that mess, let them
squirm. Hero! Fucking hero! I didn’t save Justin. He doesn’t blame me, and the
others are maybe starting to forgive me. Not that I care, or need anybody’s
forgiveness. Maybe hers. Jennifer. But that’s not fucking likely.
She asked me to take Justin and truthfully, I wanted to. I can admit that to
myself. And not only out of guilt and a need to help him, but for my own sake.
Justin wasn’t the only one who needed help. People who don’t think I’m
self-analytical would be shocked to know that sometimes I am. Not often.
Sometimes.
Michael called me a fucking fall-down mess. So maybe sometimes I got a little
carried away with the drinking. Not that I couldn’t handle it, but there were a
couple times I woke up in the jeep and couldn’t remember where I was. Yet
somehow I always managed to make it to the hospital. Going to that hospital
every night, watching over Justin like some demented, clipped-wing guardian
angel, kept me back from the edge.
What surprises me now is to remember how totally sure I was that Justin would
blame me too. Maybe if he’d remembered that night right away, he would have
blamed me. No, that’s not true. Justin would never have blamed me, that was me
projecting my own feelings of guilt onto him. Justin loves me. Which totally
scares the shit out of me most of the time.
Scares me because I don’t want it, I don’t need it, I am not a man to love or be
loved. I made a conscious decision many years ago to turn away from that
romantic bullshit and live honestly, with myself and everyone else. Love is a
crutch and a catch-all, an excuse that gives license to the most outrageous
behavior. I won’t be its object. Not even for Justin.
Somehow I can accept Michael’s love. Maybe because he loved me long before I
built up my walls. He’s the only one who has been inside me, inside my defenses.
Sometimes Justin slips under my guard too, though I was able to ward him off for
a long, long time. Although I never let on, Justin touched me quite a few times,
before the bashing. The courage of this kid is unbelievable.
He is a kid, and his childishness still pops out sometimes. He’s matured so much
this year though. Maybe that’s normal for teenagers, or more likely, all the
shit he’s been through this year has forced him to grow up fast. I’ll never
forget his bravado when I’d tracked him down to the hotel in New York.
Pretending to be brash and carefree, yet quaking beneath the façade. Despite his
fear of consequences, he opened himself up to me, opened his robe and opened his
body and sucked me in with that seductive smile. Jesus, that courage took my
breath away. Was that when I was hooked?
Justin is strong, I don’t think most people realize that about him. He appears
so young, so sweet, so soft. But he’s a tiger. No, not a tiger – that’s a crude
and facile image, and diminishes him. He’s just a man, but he’s more of a man
than most men I’ve known my entire life.
He’s also a pain in the ass. He thinks he’s sly, trying to be my conscience. He
knows about the rift that’s been growing between me and Michael, of course he
knows, he’s fucking observant and fucking intuitive. A professor said once that
intuition is half of intelligence – an unconscious observance of life going on
around you, incorporated into reasoning and thought. Something like that. And
Justin’s keenly aware of other people, their motivations, their relationships.
We talked about it once, and he told me that I am, too. That surprised me,
because, in spite of everything, I think it’s true.
He joked today that I should hang with people my own age. That remark was a
double-edged sword to me because I know he was teasing and yet, like most jests,
there was enough truth in it to hit home. Thinking he was being subtle, he meant
that I should spend some time with Michael. While I laughed at his joke, I felt
a distant chill. I’m so much older than him. He himself needs to be with people
his own age.
Another reminder to stay detached. Except, I’m past detachment. The attack in
the garage pushed me way past detachment.
No, no. If I’m going to be honest, I have to admit that I was way past
detachment when I walked into the prom and led him onto the dance floor.
Justin’s on to me, he’s said it before. But I’m on to him, too. He thinks he
needs to give me a nudge toward Michael. He’s smart enough to plant his little
seed and move quickly on, as if I won’t notice the nudge. He’s done it before,
and each time it takes my breath away. How can he see inside my head?
I’ve managed to sufficiently intimidate most people to some degree over the
years - friends and family - to the point that they don’t third-degree me about
my life. I don’t owe anybody any answers or explanations, or what Debbie likes
to call my ‘intentions’ toward Justin - like I’m some suitor in one of her cheap
romance novels. So most people don’t dare to question me about Justin, or about
whatever the fuck thing (it’s not a ‘relationship’) we’re having right now.
Linds crosses the line sometimes but she knows when to stop. Michael doesn’t ask
me about Justin at all. About our thing. Fuck. I don’t want to call it a
relationship. There must be a word for this. . .thing that is going on between
us. Justin would call it love, though he’s careful to avoid that word. I don’t
know what to call it.
I can’t believe I’m walking around the streets of Pittsburgh, holding hands with
this beautiful boy, hugging him, kissing him, in front of every stranger passing
by in the crowd. I can’t believe that I want to hug him, kiss him like that. I
feel my mouth smiling at him and I can’t make it stop. Sometimes I try to look
away, but he pulls me back like a magnet. My arms go around him of their own
volition, and this – something feeling – rises up in my chest like an enormous
helium balloon, practically lifting me off my feet. Fuck. I don’t like it.
Control is everything in life. If you’re out of control, you’re lost. When I put
my arms around him, when his incredible blue eyes smile at me, when our mouths
crush together, I start spinning out of control. I don’t like it. I don’t want
it. I don’t need it. I don’t!
1/23/02