Churches
are scary fucking places. So big and empty. You look up and
the ceiling is so far up there and all there is between you and it is cold,
stale air. And it just gets worse the older you get. As a kid,
you have the notion that you HAVE to go, your mum dragging you by the collar
of your shirt and sitting you down in a pew, telling you to shut up and
pay attention. But, despite her warning, you’d squirm through the
whole sermon, fiddling with the hymnals and the bookmark tassels in the
old, worn bibles, your mum spending the whole morning trying to get you
to settle down and consequently missing the entire service. Then,
as the priest would step down from his pulpit, you’d jump up and run out
into the yard, free for another week until the next Sunday rolled around.
At fifteen or sixteen you decide that you’re no longer going to church. You pull a very lofty and worthy excuse from your vast and expanding vocabulary and tell your mother that you want to try and figure out what you believe on your own, that organized religions are too political and that they put notions into your head. You’re not so sure you want to be Catholic anymore. And, begrudgingly, your mum agrees. She’s glad her son is developing opinions and questioning things instead of just accepting them. So Mum’s happy and now you’ve got Sundays off to play football. Had you any clue why you’d end up in a church again you would not have taken those lazy Sunday morning services for granted.
It’s cold. I mean really cold. Even wearing a blazer, which I NEVER do, it’s freezing. I’m shivering like crazy and I’ve got a knot in my stomach that’s bigger than a football. I feel like I’m going to be sick. The priest is talking, but I’ll be damned if I can understand a word he’s saying. His voice is so fucking... mellow. It’s even and flat and infuriating. You’d think the bloody bastard was afraid to disturb someone. Trust me, everyone here is more than enough disturbed that raising his voice wouldn’t change anything.
Steve. I heard that. I can’t hear anything but the buzzing in my head until he says it. Steve. Like he knew him or something. Steve this and Steve that and Steve’s friends... And I have to sit here and listen like a spectator, like I’m watching some bad movie with bad actors and a terrible plot that never ends and is never resolved. Part of me wishes he’d shut the fuck up and get it over with and the rest of me never wants him to stop talking because, when he stops, I’ll have to go see Steve.
I saw Steve every way he could be seen. Drunker than hell, passed out in a hallway, dressed in a tuxedo at my wedding, naked and dressed, asleep and awake, healthy, sick, depressed... We shared a room for the whole entire Pyromania tour. I saw every piece of clothes he owned and every inch of his body, what color his hair was and how pale his skin could be where the sun never touched it. Intimate moments, is that what I’d call them? Maybe. Not all of those things were as innocent as I’d lead people to think they were. Fortunately Steve has taken all those memories to his grave and will gladly do the same.
Oh, God. Silence. Everything’s gone silent. All I can hear is the beating of my heart in my ears. And my breathing. God, it’s so loud. I wonder if everyone else can hear it as loud as I can. And as loud and deep as I’m breathing, I can’t get a breath. I’m going to suffocate, I’m going to drown.
Joe! No! Let go of me! I don’t want to go, I don’t want to see him! He thinks he’s helping me, helping me to stand because I can’t. But I don’t want to stand. I don’t want to go...
He’s let me go and he’s broken my heart with the look in his eyes and the tears on his cheeks. I’m trembling and crying, too. I can feel the wetness of tears on my face and I can hear my sobs, but it feels like I’m watching it instead of doing it. I must be crying really hard because everyone is looking at me... Sav, Joe, Rick, Beryl... Lord, Steve’s mum. She’s staring at me. I have to stop crying, I have to stop, stop, stop, stop! I can’t stop. Oh, God, oh, God, please.
Joe’s got me... and Sav. They’re on either side of me, lifting me to my feet. I’m not sobbing anymore, but I’m whimpering. Shallow and pathetic, but I can’t stop myself. It hurts so much. Too much. Too fucking much. God, please, I just want to die. Please, please, please...
I’m standing in the middle of the church. Sav and Joe have left me. They’re with Steve, now. And she’s standing there. Steve’s mum. Looking at me... sympathetic, pitying. Why should she pity me? I’m just a man who loved her son for nine years and took the greatest friendship I’ve ever had for granted. If anything she should hate me. She should hate me for not telling him how much he meant to me, for not standing by his side and weathering the storm with him, for not taking the proverbial bullet for him. After all, that’s why I hate myself. I hate myself for being afraid, too afraid to face Steve’s problems for fear of having to deal with my own. Too fucking scared to love him when he needed me most. Too busy living my own life, loving my beautiful wife and my beautiful son and my perfect fucking house with a prefect fucking yard. Thinking that he’d go back to London and come back the old Steve that I used to know. The Steve that dressed like my twin and played guitar with me on the hotel room floor at three in the morning. The Steve whose smile pulled me out of my foulest moods. The Steve who wrote incredible music. Or even the slightly flawed Steve that smoked too many Marlboro Red cigarettes and drank too much Smirnoff. Just as long as he wasn’t manic depressed, bipolar, alcoholic Steve that I’d last seen in the studio in Dublin. I hate myself because I realized that I hated him. Just for a fraction of a second as the rest of us continued recording without him, as I put my first notes down on tape without him there. I hated him for leaving, I hated him for being sick, I hated him because I knew he’d never come back.
Everyone is gone. I vaguely remember Joe stopping to talk to me as he left, asking me something to which I nodded numbly. And then the others passed by me, their words nothing more than bass mumbles as they too exited. Then Barry Clark, the enemy, Steve’s dad. He put his hand on my shoulder and spoke to me, his voice so much lighter than I remember it being from the few times I’d been in the same room with him. It seemed weird to me that he should be sad. No matter what Steve did in his life, it was never enough to please this man. I guess I expected him to be indifferent and it caught me off guard that I should hear tears in his voice. And though I don’t remember what he said to me, I know that it was gentle and apologetic. He was asking me for a forgiveness of sorts. Too bad that I was too grief stricken to give it.
Baryl held me. She was the last one out of the church and as she went out, she took me in her arms and held me to her, stroking my hair and whispering soothing things in my ear as if I were her own child. She even told me she loved me, the only words I remember for the whole day besides Steve’s name. I’m sure she was pouring herself out this way to ease the pain a mother feels when it’s child is taken from it. I am the closest thing alive to her son. His twin, his soul mate. And I am sure she understands as she cradles me in her arms, soothing me and herself in the embrace. With a kiss to my forehead, she says goodbye. Something she probably wished she could have done with Steve as he slipped away.
Now it’s just me and him. Me and Steve. Alone. We’ve been alone together more times than I can count. This is the last time. I’m walking towards his casket, numb to everything around me. There’s nothing in my world right now but Steve’s lifeless body and the mocking, unnerving, annoying beat of my living heart. My heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest and Steve’s is dead and still. It’s not fucking fair. I wish that I could reach into my chest and rip the fucking thing out. The notion is romantic, stumbling my last steps to touch the hand of my best friend one last time before I die at the foot of his coffin.
Two steps to go. Just two more steps. And I take them so slowly that I don’t feel like I’m ever going to get there. When I do I look down slowly, seeing the stark white of Steve’s skin and instantly thinking that this isn’t real. They’d autopsied him. They had to. How on Earth could he look so alive if they’d cut him to pieces? It just doesn’t makes sense. I swallow, the action almost causing me to vomit as I look down finally. Oh, God... Steve. No, no, no, Steve... His eyes... they’re so softly closed, like he’s asleep. Wake up, Steve. Please, wake up. Please, I’ll do anything. Steve...
The tears
are back, stinging my already raw eyes as whimpering moans slip from my
trembling lips. He’s so beautiful laying there, his face so serene,
his hands resting softly at his sides, his body covered in clothes that
were nicer than anything he’d every worn in my presence, even at my wedding.
As shockingly unusual as these things are to me, I am more amazed at some
of the things that are so Steve... He’s still wearing his earrings,
both gold hoops and the tiny diamond stud in the other ear. His watch,
the gold Rolex he’d bought on a drunken shopping spree with me. His
necklace, the tiny gold Les Paul that dangled from the end. The ring
on his left ring finger and the one on his right pinky... Suddenly
I’m seized with the urge to take his hand, reaching down without thought
and holding cool, unresponsive fingers in my palm, running my fingers over
his fingertips and sobbing once loudly as I feel the callouses on them.
Oh, God... he’s gone. My twin is gone.
I close
my eyes and weep, pressing his fingers to my lips and kissing them, holding
them to my eyes and crying against them. I’m babbling, telling him
I miss him and I love him and I can’t live without him. Steve, Steve,
no... I can’t let you go, I can’t... Please come back to me,
Steve. I promise I’ll be a better friend, I’ll always be here for
you, please... Just come back to me. Please, I can’t live without
you.
Joe is back, his hands are on my shoulders. He’s telling me to let go. To say good-bye and let go. But I don’t want to let go. I never want to let go. Joe is begging me, telling me I have to try and move on and I’m shaking my head, holding Steve’s hand tightly. Joe’s crying now and I can’t stand the sound of it. My heart is breaking, forced to chose between easing Joe’s pain or saying good-bye to Steve for the last time. Finally something snaps inside me and I lose control, screaming at the top of my lungs, releasing Steve’s hand and falling to my knees. Joe’s shaking, kneeling next to me, asking me to stop, please, stop screaming.
I stop. As if some kind of calm descends on me like the shadow of a cloud I stop screaming, stop crying, stop everything. I stand, leaving Joe to watch me from his place on the floor as I gently tuck Steve’s hand back at his side. Brushing my fingertips softly over Steve’s forehead I touch the silken gold strands of his hair one last time. I lean down as close as I can to his ear and whisper to him, I love you, Steve. Good-bye.
Joe, now standing behind me, gently takes me the hand and draws me away. I only look back once, burning the image of Steve’s face into my mind so that I will never forget. Then I turn to face forward, walking with Joe out of the church. I will never see Steve again.
~ The End ~
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