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In the car, you and Jackson bonded over films and role-playing games. And the rest is unfortunately history.
First: The phone call on November 7th detailing this new guy in your life. I had hoped your time with Jackson would just be a quick thing, but it stretched to a point where I couldn’t deny our own endgame was threatened. I wanted to know exactly what he looked like, what his story was, what your dates were like, what it was about him that mesmerized you.
Jackson is blocking the door. Your dad is trying to reenter the chapel. He has definitely been smoking hard core, and the smell nauseates me instantly, reminding me of all the times he drove us around in his car that stunk of stale cigarettes and air freshener before he finally quit. (Until now.) Your dad doesn’t acknowledge Jackson beyond a hand on the shoulder, and while this is sick to admit, it makes me feel good. Jackson flew here, but he isn’t getting much from the man who taught you how to tie your shoes and ride a bike.
My dad approaches yours. My mom remains close to me. Wade reappears by my side. I don’t know if Wade is nervous over how this is about to go down between Jackson and me or if he’s showing me support, but I don’t need him right now. I need to do this alone. But right when I’m about to go over to Jackson, your dad and mine step toward me.
“Hey, Russell,” I say, twisting my ring finger. It’s an antistress trick you taught me, used by people who are afraid of flying—not that I’m ever getting on a plane.
I last spoke with your dad on the phone the day you died, and again the day after, but this is the first time I’m seeing him. He’s wearing his reading glasses instead of the horn-rimmed frames he should be, and when he opens his mouth to speak, I notice his teeth have yellowed. He shuts himself up. There’s no point asking him how he’s doing. I hug him, battling through the invisible cigarette cloud.
“You still think you have it in you to share some words?” Russell murmurs.
I step back and nod. I can’t believe I live in a universe where I’m delivering a eulogy for you.
He pats me on the shoulder, like he did Jackson, and walks away to check on Ellen in the service room.
Jackson is making his way toward me, eyes lowered and hands pocketed. My parents and Wade are staring at me. I quietly ask them to give us a minute. I’m not sure if Jackson even wants to talk to me, but it’s happening. My mom tells me she’ll hold a seat for me. They all leave, and Wade looks over his shoulder as if he’s expecting something explosive. There will be no fights at your funeral, I promise.
Suddenly, I’m standing face-to-face with your boyfriend. His left eye is stained red, and he smells like cigarette smoke, too.
“Hey, Griffin,” Jackson says.
He says my name like we’re friends.
Funny, as I refused to meet him when you brought him here in February for your birthday. No way in hell was I going to go to one of our places with him. And we didn’t exactly check in with each other after you died, not that anyone thought we would. I thought of him, sure, but not so much about how he was doing as I’ve been wondering what the hell your final moments were like.
He was there with you.
Is it weird to envy him for that, for witnessing something I would never want to see with my own eyes? I have all this history with you, Theo, but he has pieces of your puzzle that would destroy me if I ever had to put them together, and yet I still want them.
“Hey, Jackson,” I say. We don’t offer each other condolences. Maybe he’s waiting for me to do so; he’s going to be waiting for a while. “What’s wrong with your eye?”
“Popped a blood vessel,” Jackson says. “Doctor doesn’t know if it’s from all the crying or screaming. It’ll go away.”
I didn’t know someone could pop a blood vessel from crying. That’s something you would know.
Jackson moves past me to get to your cutout. He doesn’t touch your face or trace your nameplate. He rests his forehead against yours—not an even fit, obviously—and closes his eyes.
“I miss you, Theodore,” he says.
Using your given name is so unexpectedly intimate, and you weren’t about being called that. You thought it made you sound too stiff and presidential. I’m not going to call him out on that. I can’t. What if you changed your mind? What if I out
myself for truly not knowing who you were before you died?
“How long are you in town for?” I ask. Seems nicer than asking him when the hell he’s going to leave.
Jackson turns, shrugs. “I got here last night. I’m thinking about staying another week or two.”
I know from you his mother has spent the past few years in a wheelchair, so it’s safe to bet she’s not here with him.
“You staying with friends?”
You’d mentioned Jackson had “theater friends” at NYU when he visited in February, though I’m not sure you two ever got around to meeting up with them—not with all the time you spent with your family, including the traditional movie-theater outing on your birthday. You must’ve shared a recliner seat with Jackson; that used to be our throne, Theo.
“I’m staying with the McIntyres,” Jackson says.
I’m such an idiot. He smells like cigarette smoke because he was outside with your dad, and he only got the shoulder pat because he’s been with them since last night. He must be staying in your room. Of course he is. He’s chief curator in the main exhibit of the McIntyre Museum, taking in all the archives of your life. I can see it all: our framed puzzles on your light-blue walls, a bookcase full of sketches you later animated at wicked speed, awards you didn’t mind “showing off,” your computer station decked out with robot magnets and old Tetris cartridges, the golden unicycle wheel you won at that carnival in the Bronx last summer, the plastic bat you used to beat the piñata at Denise’s seventh birthday, then saved for the zombie-pirate apocalypse . . .
