37. “Trust”An old woman came into the waiting room with a pile of just about every tabloid that was on the market. The doctors were busy checking on Jay, so we had been pushed out of the room. I wanted to be in there, to make sure that they weren’t... I didn’t want to think about them sticking Jay all over with needles and then talking about him like he was a mannequin. This was a university hospital, I was sure that there were dozens of med students who wanted to see the rock star who had crumbled, who wanted to brag to their friends that they’d changed his dressings or shit like that. I busied myself with looking at the headlines on the woman’s tabloids.
“DRUG-CRAZED VOCALIST TRIES TO DO HIMSELF IN: ‘I knew he was gonna do it, he’d been talking about it for weeks.’ says an unidentified source” accompanying picture Jay on the stage foaming at the mouth, his eyes wild and unfocused...the blood tastefully airbrushed out.
“DEATH IS THE ONLY LOVER FOR THIS HEROIN JUNKIE” A close-up of Jay’s face superimposed over a skeleton’s.
“LOSING HIS GAY LOVER DID THIS STAR IN...EXCLUSIVE PICTURES!” said the last...there were pictures of me running after the stretcher...I could only imagine what they had inside. My fingers scratched down my face.
“PUBLICITY STUNT TURNS FATAL!” Jay holding up the knife, just about to cut, but they couldn’t show him actually cutting because that would be unprofessional and might scare away readers.
Then on some of the more “professional” magazines there were pictures of him right after he’d shot up and was still bleeding, pictures before the “tragedy”...little articles about how to spot the signs of depression and drug abuse, homosexuality and self-injury. A short little ditty about how society was to blame. Most of them assumed that Jay had done it to himself on purpose...they either hadn’t heard or chose to edit his “last words”. Lots of gory pictures of his chest, but they didn’t recognize the name on his stomach, who had convinced them it was “Bobbi”? Maybe they thought they were sparing him the shame of being exposed as having a male lover.
The television was on in the background. Thankfully there wasn’t much about Jay since it was on a channel about animals. I didn’t need to be bombarded on all sides. I rested my head on Ryan’s shoulder and stuck my fingers in my mouth. Tranquilizers only went so far. Kittens and puppies frolicked on the screen, nipping and biting at each other. I used to have pets.
The woman kept on looking at the tabloids and then up at me and Ryan. Paige and Amir had gone back to the hotel for some quality time. Ryan bravely volunteered to stay with me. He was so patient, and that was totally unexpected. I tried to keep from remembering him when he fucked Jay raw.
“Wait a minute.” the woman exclaimed, leaning forward and staring intently at me from behind her cat eye glasses. “You’re the guy in the magazine!” she said, pointing at my picture. I almost thought I could see the words “partner in drugs” underneath my emaciated form. My fingers traced over the threads in Ryan’s shirt aimlessly. I wanted so badly to bitch at her but I didn’t have the energy to waste.
Ryan looked at her and sighed. “He gets that all the time. It’s weird how people totally unrelated can look almost exactly alike.” he said calmly. She looked like she might protest it but I glared at her ferociously until she shut her mouth and sat back in her chair and read her tabloids.
Rain fell almost silently outside. The sky was the color of death and dying, not quite black but not quite white either. It muddied in the middle and one could almost see the sun. The rain left little blotches in the windows that congealed into a huge drip and then collected on the sills, only to be washed away by the other drops. Nothing was static, everything changed. The only sounds were my breath and his, blending together and matching.Milk white skin confronted me. I stared at his right arm right above the affected wrist, wondering why the veins still looked whole and alive. I thought they would be swollen and red, puckered and burst, splotches of red dots like huge measles all over his skin. Instead all the color was gone, drained into the little gauze almost glove that covered his hand. The one from earlier that had been tinged yellow was gone, replaced with a nice clean white one.
If they had moved him, it wasn’t noticeable. I had grown used to the noises, tuning them out as I stared intently at him. Wanted so desperately to hug him...but the tubes were all in the way. I pulled my chair as close as possible and laid my head down on the side of the bed. I could wait until I was allowed to hug him again.
The sheets were so cold they almost felt like water spilling over my cheeks, like tears shed long ago that hadn’t yet dried. I went up and went over to the heater and tried to see if I could monkey with it. Someone must have had the same idea earlier, the controls were bolted shut. I wondered if the temperature was controlled in an office miles away. It would only be logical. Went back to the bed and leaned on the rails, watching him while he lingered.
His left hand was closest, I covered it with my own and sighed, staring up at his immobile face. For once he looked calm, but it was because he was unconscious or floating in a world created by the fluids and pills, not because all of the tensions in his life had been excised.
His lips were dry and cracked, I wondered if they had shoved plastic into his mouth as they had into mine, desperately tried to help him stay alive. I leaned fully on the metal, it was about the same temperature as the sheets. I felt like I was the only one who could possibly begin to understand what it was like...only a few months or so ago I was in the same position, but for different circumstances. I had been naive enough to think that...swallowed hard and tried to focus on Jay. Jay needed me to be strong and stay, not to waver again.
Ryan came in with some candy from the vending machine. I found that it was easier to eat something that was supposed to be unhealthy than to even try and eat things that would make me feel better. After lots of coaxing I had tried some chicken noodle soup for lunch and wound up in the bathroom puking only a few minutes later. But little bits of processed sugar so pure that they couldn’t possibly taste like ash stayed down. Maybe it was the fact that they weren’t the color of urine, they didn’t fill my mouth with dust.
The multi-colored chocolate things spilled out and a few fell off the table. Ryan caught one and tossed it into the air, catching it easily. The others we just left. I separated the pieces into their color piles, then paired them off in little couples with others of a different color. There was a half broken one and a misshapen one left over. I moved them together slowly, trying not to dwell. I ate them last.
Ryan sat in the corner and dozed. No matter how much I felt like sleeping I had to stay awake. If I missed Jay’s last moment of lucidity before he died, I would...well, I would already be dead. Contingency plans lurked in my mind, everything was a way out. My fingers were covered with scabbed over bite marks. I had gnawed myself into a frenzy after lunch in the bathroom stall after the heaves had stopped and I knew that Ryan wouldn’t come in unless I made sounds like I was dying. I wanted him to live so badly I would give whatever I could, even if it meant...
His eyes fluttered and then opened a bit. “Jay?” I whispered, touching his hand gently. Bloodshot brown eyes dilated and then focused on me. I bit down on my quavering lip as I tightened my grip on his hand. “I’m so sorry...”
He moved his head a little to the right in an attempt to see me better. Petal pink anemic looking tongue painted over his lips before he moved his mouth to speak. “...didn’t mean to...” he said softly, as if it took so much effort simply to speak.
“I know you didn’t.” Hid my face with my arm. “It was my fault for leaving.”
That stayed in the air for a second, then he tried to move and shift onto his side so that he could see me better. I watched as the fingers flexed beneath the gauze and he grimaced, sucking in a hissed breath. But he still tried to move...until the plastic clip attaching his arm to the bed tugged and he let his arm drop. He settled for laboriously moving his left hand and touching my face. “I don’t blame you.” His eyes returned to his wrist, then he sighed. “They wouldn’t let me take it off.”
I looked up from my misery and met his gaze. Suddenly the reason why he had a new bandage seemed more clear. “You’re not supposed to.”
“Hurts like fuck.” he whimpered, his bottom lip trembling. He slammed his eyes closed and clenched his teeth.
I moved his left arm out of the way a bit, shifted some IVs, moved a few machines. Then I crawled into bed with him, put his arm around me, and hugged him while he sobbed. Leaned my head against his chest. Whispered all that I had done while I was gone, told him a thousand times that I loved him, I knew he didn’t mean to do it, I never ever blamed him for anything that he’d done. He said little. I didn’t expect much. For once I felt like I could sleep.
“Bobby!” Ryan hissed. “You’re gonna get in trouble!” He shook me gently, trying not to disturb Jay. I stared up at him groggily. Everything was split in two and vibrating. Was it an earthquake? No...just the drugs wearing off. I let him peel me away from Jay. “Come on, let’s get you back to the hotel. Visiting hours are almost over.”I rubbed at my eyes frantically, trying to restore normal function. It was all so bright. Ryan had a halo from the flourescent lighting. The veins in my hands...I thought I could almost see the blood flowing through them. “Please...do you think the doctor would let me stay?” I asked.
Ryan took a long look at Jay, then at me. “I don’t think so. Maybe when he’s not so messed up. I’m sorry, I wish there was something I could do.” I didn’t feel like fighting and causing a scene. Jay had told me himself that he wasn’t going to die, I had to trust that he knew himself well enough to determine that.
He was asleep or doped up again. I kissed him as deeply as I could, trying to replace the feeling of his new flesh with the memories I had of the old. Tried to replace the smell of sickness with that of health, the metal bloody taste with... I failed.
“Come on...we’ll go get something to drink to take our minds off it, okay?” Ryan suggested, slapping my back. I nodded dimly. I knew that I would end up drinking water anyway.