Locus Iste a Deo Factus Est
Title: Locus Iste a Deo Factus Est
Author: inabasket
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Unreal!
Character(s): Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, wives
Word Count: 4,252
Prompt: a thousand (for spittingink )
Summary: John is Adam's conscience.
Notes: Title from this choir anthem by Anton Bruckner that I got stuck in my head while writing this. Translates to, "This place was made by God", and the song is titled "Locus Iste". I listened to "So Real" by Jeff Buckley while writing the end, some Elliott Smith while writing a wedding scene... so, that's my soundtrack suggestions that I doubt anybody will keep in mind. Thank you likeanaccidentx for basically giving me the idea, and coaching me through Adam related things. And I'm sorry to everybody I whined to about this story. The opening is a series of flashbacks, so if tense changes, that's why. And I really felt awkward writing the wedding. Either way, this was somewhat horrible and sketchy... I just hope someone enjoys reading it. I'll write something better soon.
It’s Adam and John, sitting in a coffee shop, right before it closes. The baristas have stopped serving and are stacking chairs onto tables to facilitate sweeping that will need to be done. There is no light being produced from the outside - it’s a dark, dreary corner, and the only light is from the coffee shop itself. John doesn’t have a coffee; neither does Adam, but there was a point in time when they both did. At least, Adam thinks there must have been, but he can’t actually remember it.
There are a lot of instances that Adam relies on his imagination as opposed to actual memory. He assumes that most people are like that. His short-term memory is shot from sleep deprivation and caffeine and various other instruments that would knock hours off his mind’s chronologic distinguishing. His long-term only remembers the vaguest moments, or the darkest, or the most mundane. Everything else he just assumes, creates. He forgot when John started talking to him again, when he started appearing everywhere, giving him advice, but he’s quite happy he did.
For one, he thinks leaving Chauntelle was not a good idea. John had said this, too. John had stared at him incredulously when he’d admitted he’d been thinking of it more and more.
He had been disapproving the whole time. When they’d be sitting together, Chauntelle and Adam, on the porch of his house in Texas, being romantic and slow, kissing, and he would go inside to get a glass of water, or think about what he was regretting, work out nerves. The older man would be on the couch, maybe napping, or relaxing, and when he would hear the noise Adam was making, he’d stir. Adam would always wait for him to become entirely lucid, and he would automatically sense what was happening.
John would ask, “Chauntelle’s out there?” He’d shift until he was sitting on the couch.
Still standing out in limbo, holding his glass of ice water, Adam would say, “Yeah. I don’t really know what to do anymore.”
“It’s not like you have to do anything anymore. You’re going to get married.”
Adam would sigh, sip more of his water - sober for her - and say, “Yeah, but that’s the thing. I dunno. I get kinda… it’s like. I’m just itching to…”
“Do the wrong thing? Cause another dramatic event? Come on, Adam…” John would yawn and lay back down, too exhausted to really deal with Adam. “Just, do whatever.”
“I’m … I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Adam would ask, and then shrug. “Whatever, you nap. You can nap. I’ll go back outside. Whatever.”
Another instance in which John was mostly a positive influence - even if not influential enough - would be simpler moments, like when he was contemplating buying a pack of cigarettes in a supermarket. Adam had been standing in the queue and John had been looking at the rack set up right in front of the counter, last minute items, picking up and putting down the packets of gum that were his favorite.
“I just can’t decide,” John whined. He picked up Extra. “I can’t decide between original and Spearmint. And… just what does Doublemint think its doing? It thinks it’s confusing me, I bet.” He sighed. “Well, it’s right.”
Turning to face his ex-bandmate, Adam’s lips twisted into an extremely large, Joker-grin, and the woman who was paying at the counter finished. John had bumped into her twice while deciding on a flavor of gum, apologized about a thousand times, and Adam remembered feeling really unsettled when she didn’t notice, though he couldn’t put a finger on why.
John was at his side this time, accidentally bumped into him when he was paying as well. Adam put his bag of tortilla chips and salsa on the counter, and immediately said, “Can I get some Marlboros? Some…” And he trailed off, feeling his stomach sink.
Yeah, so, he’d been trying to stop for Chauntelle. He was almost sure she had convinced herself, somehow, that he quit smoking awhile ago, which was far from the truth. He felt the guilt, though. He thought about it before he fell asleep, and all other average symptoms of guilt.
And John turned to look at him, putting his gum on the counter (Big Red, which he didn’t even like but he must’ve been aware Adam did) and shook his head frantically. “No, Adam. Remember? You’re not supposed to.”
Adam frowned. “I know, but, I really, really want a smoke… Uh. Marlboro Lights. Yeah. I won’t even smoke them, maybe, I’ll…” He trailed off, because he wasn’t entirely sure who he was trying to fool.
“I’m too inconsistent,” Adam reflected when the two had made it outside. John stared at him, adjusted his glasses in the way that would have made Adam laugh, had he not been moping. “I’m really… I really want to try, but, well,” Adam pulled on his sunglasses, having to do it carefully with the plastic bag balanced in his hand.
John shrugged.
Adam had stopped wondering why John was never on tour when he wasn’t. Or even when he was. He could call John at strange times and it seemed John was close enough to make it. Well, not all the time - sometimes off in Vegas, he was away from his phone and couldn’t even remember the number (curse his vices, cutting off his memories), so there was no John. Out in California, he didn’t even consider it. And they resorted to texts when he got to Wyoming.
When Fred left, nobody was surprised. Nobody who was nearby was, anyways. John certainly wasn’t. “Fred wasn’t happy, anyways,” John said, simply, about that subject. “You were kind of being a dick to him at the restaurant the other day.”
“How do you even know about that?” Adam asked, semi-amused, semi-disinterested in being lectured. He realized he didn’t even care and cuffed John lightly by the ear. “I know,” and a cigarette was hanging out of his mouth, followed quickly by his hand flicking a lighter.
“You really shouldn’t smoke,” John stressed, rubbing his head where he’d been hit. The singer was hanging his head out of the window of his room, smoke trailing up, and John sighed. “You said you were going to… ah, I’m not going to bother.”
Adam sneered at him, showing his teeth and crinkling his nose. He roared at John, somewhat seriously, but John still laughed. “I’m just wonderin’… like, do you think that… people are going to be - to be upset? Or like… I don’t know…” John flicked his glasses up; Adam laughed and flicked his sunglasses up the same way, mocking him. “Nolan, I’m just not sure how to feel.”
John sighed. “I don’t really have anything to say. I’m considering taking a nap, though,” he yawned. He always seemed to be tired. “I’m just... spent. It’s been a lot of work lately.”
“Fuck, just go to your wife,” Adam laughed and puffed on his cigarette, seeming to already have his hand on his next one, head still hanging out the window. John suggested getting a screen to keep bugs out when he first witnessed this, but Adam still hadn’t gotten one installed. “You need to rest and like… be with her.”
“Hey, screw you. Eh, it’s a good idea. Go to your fiancée…” John yawned again and flopped over on the bed, t-shirt brushing loudly against Adam’s bed sheets. Adam crushed his cigarette out on the sill, left the carton by the window, and promptly padded over to the bed, curled in the extra space John left.
“I’m tired, too.” Adam sighed, kicking his legs out, but taking care not to hit John. “I’m just… you know, it’s a lot of… my life is a lot.”
John laughed, but in a humorous way. “Yeah… it’s not so bad. I mean, you could be starving in Uganda…”
“Yeah,” Adam said and turned onto his back, shut his eyes. “You’re right.”
And he woke up the next day, John was gone. Adam assumed he never fell asleep at his house, and he doesn’t mind. He’s really glad that they both are over what had happened. John, sure, doesn’t talk about Michelle or his band or Jesse very much, but Adam probably wouldn’t even like it if he did, so he’s simply grateful.
All of this happened. Adam is sitting in front of John now, John has his hands clasped, is kind of staring off. Adam is reminded of just how much he used to worship John, can relate to who he was then. He’s hoping his mood shifts to something pleasant, he feels guilty leaving John with all these unhappy messages.
Especially lately. “Mischa’s pregnant.” Or, “She wants us to get married.” Or, “It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. But, you know… that’s how it is.”
And John doesn’t even get it. “That’s a horrible idea,” he rolls his eyes. “Really? How could you even think it’s the best idea? You two getting married? You’ve known her for, what? Four months?”
“Baby’s due…”
“Shut up. Yeah, it was dumb and irresponsible to get her pregnant, but think how awful a divorce is on a child. Think.”
“Who said we’d divorce?”
“Think.”
“I mean, yeah, okay. It’s not a great idea…” For a moment, Adam feels a bit like he’s talking to himself more than John. John’s voicing the logic that’s already in his head. Sometimes, Adam thinks John isn’t that smart. Not that much smarter than him, anyways.
“You think?”
“It’s really fucking stupid… but it’s… it’s what I’m doing…” Adam sighs and pushes out of his seat. “I’ve kept you here too long, anyways, Nolan. You should go home or whatever…”
“I’ll walk you home,” John offers, this disapproving look present on his face. It’s this almost matronly look, one a mother would give to a child who disobeyed or done something to disappoint her.
Adam would normally find this comical, but he’s feeling the childish shame to go alongside it. “Look, the wedding is in a few days. It’s kinda… nothing special. You can come. Bring Camille.”
“Camille can take photos,” John suggests, and then immediately seems to withdraw it. They round a corner. “It is possible that’s a bad idea. I’ll come, though. Are you going back down to… Texas?”
“Yeah, I’m only up here for a day or two. Band practice,” Adam explains, and lights up a cigarette. “It’s nice seeing you, John,” and then, he can’t explain why, but he’s ready to pour his heart out. “I’m really glad you like talking to me again, and you’re really one of the better people I know. I’m so glad we’re on good terms again, and I’d feel really kind of… kind of blessed if you wanted to show up at my wedding.”
And he turns to John with his warmest smile, and John replies with a sketch of a warm smile, something shaky and incomplete. “I’ll definitely show. Thanks.”
Adam arrives at Matt’s apartment, heads to the entrance, and turns around right before he enters. John is scarce.
**
The wedding is this jaunty mockery of a formal wedding, but Adam likes it more than any other wedding in his realm of imagination. Sure, Matt came in his dress shirt and pressed pants, expecting something long and cordial and nice, and his family attended, plastered on pleasant smiles, greeting his wife and future child.
The reverend that night seems to be John.
Adam sees him standing up on the makeshift altar, at his makeshift wedding, and his stomach twists unpleasant, hisses acid into his throat. Mischa simply grasps his hands and smiles at him, and he stares down at her, shocked and disturbed.
“Adam? You okay?” she calls, and briefly looks up to the sky, feeling a bit of a chill. It’s unusually overcast and cool for Texas in the summer. Her gaze is centered back on him again, concerned.
The singer is paler than their white wedding cake, paler than she’s ever seen. He’s no better when they’re on the altar, and she blames nerves. His family and the band and a scattered few acquaintances - not a lot of them are her acquaintances - are sitting and watching. They’re sitting and watching as Adam stammers through a wedding vow that suddenly sounds vastly inappropriate, glances nervously through hers, and takes a shaky breath before bending down towards her for the kiss.
He’s thinking about how horrible it is that he’s doing this to her. Poor Mischa, who could have had a life outside of this. Poor child, born off of a hook-up. There’s self-pity coiled up so tight in his stomach he thinks he’s going to vomit. After the kiss, everybody cheers and he looks at John, John with these disappointed and resigned green eyes, and he turns to Mischa.
The people are clearing, are heading towards the table with refreshments on it, some are heading into his house. Adam’s family sticks around and his mother has her camera phone out, and she’s snapping pictures. Adam begins sucking in panting breaths, and the majority of people attending know not to ask.
The grass and soil feel heavy and soft beneath his shoes, his new wife is worried at his side, and eventually he turns to her, hisses out, “What’s John doing?” He’s saying it like it’s John’s fault, not his, that he’s panicking at his own wedding.
“John? He’s already started on the beers,” his wife says, and points out a different John. Adam’s almost amused - most goddamn common name ever.
“Nolan, I mean. John Nolan.”
She’s heard about John Nolan. She, nervously, steps away from him, and says, “Excuse me?”
Adam looks up, to find the reverend, find John - and there seems to have been some mix-up, because it’s the reverend from the nearby Episcopal church, and Adam’s squinting at him, muttering to his wife, “Now that’s just plain weird.” He pauses and shuts his eyes, and he even begins pursing his lips together and furrows his brows, still panicked. He opens his mouth. “Where did John go?”
And his eyes stay remain shut until he hears Eddie in front of him, hears the heavy way Eddie breathes when he had previously been moving quickly, can smell the faintest scent of sweat. “Adam,” he murmurs, and Adam can even still hear his wife at his side, but she’s backing away slowly. He can almost see her staring longingly at her friends and family who are waiting for her, but she’s stuck here with her embarrassing new husband.
Finally summoning the courage to open his eyes, he attempts to smile, but it’s not nearly genuine enough. He didn’t think it would be. “Hey, Eddie,” he says, waiting to be asked the initial concerned inquiries.
“What happened?” Eddie shoots a look to Mischa, telling her it’s okay to leave now, and she’s off. He grabs Adam by the shoulders, stares at him seriously.
“It’s just really… really goddamn strange.” Adam laughs this pathetic, frantic laugh and stares past Eddie, to where he can see the neighbor’s large green lawn. “It’s really goddamn strange. I thought I invited John, and he was the… the fucking… fucking reverend…”
Eddie still hasn’t gauged the situation entirely. “John?”
“Nolan.” He’s almost tired of saying the name. “I thought he was…” he trails off, almost proud of how insane he must sound. “I swore… well, I guess he wasn’t. I did invite John, though. He said he would come.”
“Did he?” The situation has been assessed. The calm of the rest of the wedding is at least ten good yards away from the two; they’re isolated. Eddie narrows his eyes and swears under his breath. “You’ve been talking to John again? I didn’t know that.”
Adam stares at him in disbelief. It’s partially denial; a new and sudden conclusion made its unwanted appearance. “How did you not know that? We’re together all the time.”
Eddie’s expression mirrors the disbelief but there’s a gradient pattern, shading into disappointment. Adam feels the burning childish shame again but he’s so shaken he can’t grasp it all the way. “I don’t even know what to do with you. Shaun says they’re in the studio right now. He didn’t mention a thing about John and you talking.”
The suspicion that something much larger is very wrong persists. Adam, incredulous, takes a moment to receive and process his words, allows his expression to shut down entirely. He knows he met up with John on the east coast several times, talked to him via text messages and telephones, and knew that Eddie must’ve seen him lounging in their tour bus (not that they had been touring a lot recently) at least once or twice. The feeling that something slipped away from Adam long ago actively resurfaces, and he settles on shaking his head. “We’ve been talking plenty.”
And that’s when he connects it.
“Have you?” Eddie asks, curious, maybe tinged with a hint of age-old anger.
“Yeah,” and Adam’s sighing. Whenever he does something particularly insane, he’s not scared or surprised. When he comes to the conclusion that John is not the reverend, was never invited to the wedding, he’s not surprised. He must have known it all along, some idea stored inside him and distorted by delusion.
The sun emerges from behind a thick white cloud, the first time it’s visible that day, and Adam’s squinting at Eddie, has to squint at everything. Eddie’s squinting right back; concerned squinting. It’s almost as though he’s heartbroken. Everything he’d been working for, all the outside forces of the world he wishes he could protect Adam from, it was a waste. And seeing Adam like this on his wedding day, it’s enough to break his heart. Eddie searches the other man’s face through his slit eyes, can see Adam’s tightened brown eyes, his tanned skin, his combed hair. “Adam?” he ventures, gently, knowing how Adam is exposed to all of these unstoppable forces he invents for himself. “I don’t think you’ve been talking to John,” and he pauses. “So that’s where you’d go? When you’d go to coffee places in middle of tour, or leave Matt’s late at night? To be with John?”
Adam’s terrified suddenly, stammering, “Well… well, well… well…” The whites of his eyes are at an increased level of visibility. The words escape sharply, outbursts leading to non-existent statements. “Well, well…”
Eddie is not even sure what to do at this point. “Did you say something about the reverend?”
Still spluttering and not fully started, Adam’s going, “Well, well…”
“It’s okay.” Eddie sighs and makes his hands into a visor above his eyes, tries to make calm eyes at the panicked Adam. “What’s going on, man? You think you’re going to be okay?”
Adam coughs, maneuvers his head back so he’s staring into the sun, looks down at Eddie with his retinas all burned out. “Yeah, I’ll be… I mean, I could’ve sworn he was there…”
**
John Nolan lives in Kansas. It takes him a long time to come to terms with this fact. The street he lives on is a lot like his town in Long Island, just different types of trees and more compact, more varied houses. Not to mention the yards are overshadowed by tall grasses and various prairie foliages that he once thought uninteresting but soon learned to find fascinating. The street signs are new on his block, the red on the stop sign is inarguably red, the green metal pole supporting it is unrusted and fresh.
It takes him five or six days, days spent wandering myopic or spectacled, to memorize the colors of his block. The block does not reach far, John shares it with four or five families, residents of the state of Kansas. There are a few kids on his block, ones that he’s almost run over with a car when they darted out to retrieve a football when he was pulling into a parking spot in front of his humble Kansas home, ones that would run up onto his porch and try to sell him stale chocolates for numerous school fundraisers.
It’s July, and it’s his summer spent relaxing with Camille, his photographer wife, and he’s extremely bored. Camille is out grocery shopping, which is an event that takes hours for her (unless he makes a detailed and direction-specific shopping list) simply because she becomes “fascinated by the organization and color”, which is an excuse used on many other occasions. There sits a shack of a general store a few blocks east of where he resides that he’s only ventured in to desperately escape the summer heat or buy a few beers.
It’s in this general store that he sees the notorious Adam Lazzara.
He almost tries to play it smooth, pretend Adam isn’t there, staring at the cigarettes behind the checkout counter, but it’s really difficult to ‘play it smooth’ when John finds himself attempting to voyage over to the snack isle but he’s folded in half by a metal news rack, one that tabletops him and sends him crashing with it onto the ground.
Disoriented, John freaks and moans, “Oh, oh god,” and he’s laughing a little, sprawling around so he can get up, retrieve his hat, limbs going this way and that. He already can feel Adam’s eyes on him, along with the amused eyes of the cashier.
John feels the two sets of eyes on him, even when he’s got the metal news rack and himself upright and composed again, and finally, he takes a deep, preparatory breath in, and hooks his gaze on Adam’s.
Adam appears to be positively horrified.
Always a bit of an awkward goat, John lifts his arm up by the elbow and waves his forearm back and forth three times. Horror isn’t too farfetched of a reaction, he rationalizes. Adam’s expression doesn’t shift, but he does move away from the check-out line (which consisted merely of him) and doesn’t look away. “Hey,” John greets stiffly.
“Aren’t you going to tell me not to smoke?” Adam asks with his tone just as accusatory as it is confounded.
“Oh, sure,” John says, entirely confused and therefore submitting to the idea. “Don’t smoke. It’s impeding to your health.” The suggestion and follow-up come out sheepish and unsure, trilling quizzically towards the end of both sentences. He takes in Adam’s appearance, but tries not to think too much of it yet.
“It is, isn’t it?” Adam laughs, and turns. “I’d like to purchase two packs of Marlboro Lights.” He spins back to face John, smiling hysterically. “It’s been awhile since I saw you. I thought I was done with this. I thought after a month I’d stopped seeing you.”
“Stopped…? Well, yeah, it’s been a pretty long time, yeah…” John finds himself falling into everything Adam says, hasn’t had enough time to think anything. Adam seems to be thinking these ideas very strongly, too, as if John objecting to anything he said was a nonexistent idea, disagreement hadn’t even been considered. It is overwhelming for John.
Adam grabs his pack of cigarettes and starts smoking one right there, after struggling with the antagonizingly noisy plastic wrapping around the carton. John doesn’t even think Adam’s aware that he’s not allowed to smoke indoors there, not that it’s an act of rebellion.
“You’re usually a bit more articulate than that. And I’m pretty clear headed right now,” Adam seems to, after saying this, lose that overwhelming quality. He’s suddenly not extremely sure.
John’s baffled. “What?”
Adam smokes his cigarette for a moment, thoughtfully. “My doctor said you were a manifestation… like, a… a visual manifestation of… so I know you’re not real. But I don’t really care…” He pulls the cigarette out.
“What?” John repeats, still baffled.
The cashier stopped paying attention awhile before, which is good because Adam isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or to someone else, suddenly. He takes another drag of his cigarette. “You know… I figured it out. I connected the dots. They tried to medicate me, but that shit takes the… it sedates most of everything. And I wasn’t harming anybody, so I didn’t have to.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s not very complicated. Stop acting like that. It’s annoying, Nolan.”
“Did something happen?” John almost looks concerned, but he’s too busy being fed words that are currently gibberish to him, and the look doesn’t quite come across his features with sound execution.
The cashier is back in the ring. It’s a middle-aged minority with an unsettling burst of facial hair on the tip of his barely molded chin, but everything else is friendly enough, approachable enough for a shack of a general store. He looks to John and says, “I saw your wife taking pictures outside my store.” He smiles at John, because they now have something to talk about.
Adam rounds on the cashier, because there was one thing he remembered about last month and all the previous visits from his John Nolan, and that was one thing: nobody else noticed him.
It all connects then. He walks over to John, cigarette still in his mouth, kind of trembling all over, and he’s laughing and laughing. He moves like he’s moving through a dream. “Oh shit,” he laughs.
Author: inabasket
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Unreal!
Character(s): Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, wives
Word Count: 4,252
Prompt: a thousand (for spittingink )
Summary: John is Adam's conscience.
Notes: Title from this choir anthem by Anton Bruckner that I got stuck in my head while writing this. Translates to, "This place was made by God", and the song is titled "Locus Iste". I listened to "So Real" by Jeff Buckley while writing the end, some Elliott Smith while writing a wedding scene... so, that's my soundtrack suggestions that I doubt anybody will keep in mind. Thank you likeanaccidentx for basically giving me the idea, and coaching me through Adam related things. And I'm sorry to everybody I whined to about this story. The opening is a series of flashbacks, so if tense changes, that's why. And I really felt awkward writing the wedding. Either way, this was somewhat horrible and sketchy... I just hope someone enjoys reading it. I'll write something better soon.
It’s Adam and John, sitting in a coffee shop, right before it closes. The baristas have stopped serving and are stacking chairs onto tables to facilitate sweeping that will need to be done. There is no light being produced from the outside - it’s a dark, dreary corner, and the only light is from the coffee shop itself. John doesn’t have a coffee; neither does Adam, but there was a point in time when they both did. At least, Adam thinks there must have been, but he can’t actually remember it.
There are a lot of instances that Adam relies on his imagination as opposed to actual memory. He assumes that most people are like that. His short-term memory is shot from sleep deprivation and caffeine and various other instruments that would knock hours off his mind’s chronologic distinguishing. His long-term only remembers the vaguest moments, or the darkest, or the most mundane. Everything else he just assumes, creates. He forgot when John started talking to him again, when he started appearing everywhere, giving him advice, but he’s quite happy he did.
For one, he thinks leaving Chauntelle was not a good idea. John had said this, too. John had stared at him incredulously when he’d admitted he’d been thinking of it more and more.
He had been disapproving the whole time. When they’d be sitting together, Chauntelle and Adam, on the porch of his house in Texas, being romantic and slow, kissing, and he would go inside to get a glass of water, or think about what he was regretting, work out nerves. The older man would be on the couch, maybe napping, or relaxing, and when he would hear the noise Adam was making, he’d stir. Adam would always wait for him to become entirely lucid, and he would automatically sense what was happening.
John would ask, “Chauntelle’s out there?” He’d shift until he was sitting on the couch.
Still standing out in limbo, holding his glass of ice water, Adam would say, “Yeah. I don’t really know what to do anymore.”
“It’s not like you have to do anything anymore. You’re going to get married.”
Adam would sigh, sip more of his water - sober for her - and say, “Yeah, but that’s the thing. I dunno. I get kinda… it’s like. I’m just itching to…”
“Do the wrong thing? Cause another dramatic event? Come on, Adam…” John would yawn and lay back down, too exhausted to really deal with Adam. “Just, do whatever.”
“I’m … I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” Adam would ask, and then shrug. “Whatever, you nap. You can nap. I’ll go back outside. Whatever.”
Another instance in which John was mostly a positive influence - even if not influential enough - would be simpler moments, like when he was contemplating buying a pack of cigarettes in a supermarket. Adam had been standing in the queue and John had been looking at the rack set up right in front of the counter, last minute items, picking up and putting down the packets of gum that were his favorite.
“I just can’t decide,” John whined. He picked up Extra. “I can’t decide between original and Spearmint. And… just what does Doublemint think its doing? It thinks it’s confusing me, I bet.” He sighed. “Well, it’s right.”
Turning to face his ex-bandmate, Adam’s lips twisted into an extremely large, Joker-grin, and the woman who was paying at the counter finished. John had bumped into her twice while deciding on a flavor of gum, apologized about a thousand times, and Adam remembered feeling really unsettled when she didn’t notice, though he couldn’t put a finger on why.
John was at his side this time, accidentally bumped into him when he was paying as well. Adam put his bag of tortilla chips and salsa on the counter, and immediately said, “Can I get some Marlboros? Some…” And he trailed off, feeling his stomach sink.
Yeah, so, he’d been trying to stop for Chauntelle. He was almost sure she had convinced herself, somehow, that he quit smoking awhile ago, which was far from the truth. He felt the guilt, though. He thought about it before he fell asleep, and all other average symptoms of guilt.
And John turned to look at him, putting his gum on the counter (Big Red, which he didn’t even like but he must’ve been aware Adam did) and shook his head frantically. “No, Adam. Remember? You’re not supposed to.”
Adam frowned. “I know, but, I really, really want a smoke… Uh. Marlboro Lights. Yeah. I won’t even smoke them, maybe, I’ll…” He trailed off, because he wasn’t entirely sure who he was trying to fool.
“I’m too inconsistent,” Adam reflected when the two had made it outside. John stared at him, adjusted his glasses in the way that would have made Adam laugh, had he not been moping. “I’m really… I really want to try, but, well,” Adam pulled on his sunglasses, having to do it carefully with the plastic bag balanced in his hand.
John shrugged.
Adam had stopped wondering why John was never on tour when he wasn’t. Or even when he was. He could call John at strange times and it seemed John was close enough to make it. Well, not all the time - sometimes off in Vegas, he was away from his phone and couldn’t even remember the number (curse his vices, cutting off his memories), so there was no John. Out in California, he didn’t even consider it. And they resorted to texts when he got to Wyoming.
When Fred left, nobody was surprised. Nobody who was nearby was, anyways. John certainly wasn’t. “Fred wasn’t happy, anyways,” John said, simply, about that subject. “You were kind of being a dick to him at the restaurant the other day.”
“How do you even know about that?” Adam asked, semi-amused, semi-disinterested in being lectured. He realized he didn’t even care and cuffed John lightly by the ear. “I know,” and a cigarette was hanging out of his mouth, followed quickly by his hand flicking a lighter.
“You really shouldn’t smoke,” John stressed, rubbing his head where he’d been hit. The singer was hanging his head out of the window of his room, smoke trailing up, and John sighed. “You said you were going to… ah, I’m not going to bother.”
Adam sneered at him, showing his teeth and crinkling his nose. He roared at John, somewhat seriously, but John still laughed. “I’m just wonderin’… like, do you think that… people are going to be - to be upset? Or like… I don’t know…” John flicked his glasses up; Adam laughed and flicked his sunglasses up the same way, mocking him. “Nolan, I’m just not sure how to feel.”
John sighed. “I don’t really have anything to say. I’m considering taking a nap, though,” he yawned. He always seemed to be tired. “I’m just... spent. It’s been a lot of work lately.”
“Fuck, just go to your wife,” Adam laughed and puffed on his cigarette, seeming to already have his hand on his next one, head still hanging out the window. John suggested getting a screen to keep bugs out when he first witnessed this, but Adam still hadn’t gotten one installed. “You need to rest and like… be with her.”
“Hey, screw you. Eh, it’s a good idea. Go to your fiancée…” John yawned again and flopped over on the bed, t-shirt brushing loudly against Adam’s bed sheets. Adam crushed his cigarette out on the sill, left the carton by the window, and promptly padded over to the bed, curled in the extra space John left.
“I’m tired, too.” Adam sighed, kicking his legs out, but taking care not to hit John. “I’m just… you know, it’s a lot of… my life is a lot.”
John laughed, but in a humorous way. “Yeah… it’s not so bad. I mean, you could be starving in Uganda…”
“Yeah,” Adam said and turned onto his back, shut his eyes. “You’re right.”
And he woke up the next day, John was gone. Adam assumed he never fell asleep at his house, and he doesn’t mind. He’s really glad that they both are over what had happened. John, sure, doesn’t talk about Michelle or his band or Jesse very much, but Adam probably wouldn’t even like it if he did, so he’s simply grateful.
All of this happened. Adam is sitting in front of John now, John has his hands clasped, is kind of staring off. Adam is reminded of just how much he used to worship John, can relate to who he was then. He’s hoping his mood shifts to something pleasant, he feels guilty leaving John with all these unhappy messages.
Especially lately. “Mischa’s pregnant.” Or, “She wants us to get married.” Or, “It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever done. But, you know… that’s how it is.”
And John doesn’t even get it. “That’s a horrible idea,” he rolls his eyes. “Really? How could you even think it’s the best idea? You two getting married? You’ve known her for, what? Four months?”
“Baby’s due…”
“Shut up. Yeah, it was dumb and irresponsible to get her pregnant, but think how awful a divorce is on a child. Think.”
“Who said we’d divorce?”
“Think.”
“I mean, yeah, okay. It’s not a great idea…” For a moment, Adam feels a bit like he’s talking to himself more than John. John’s voicing the logic that’s already in his head. Sometimes, Adam thinks John isn’t that smart. Not that much smarter than him, anyways.
“You think?”
“It’s really fucking stupid… but it’s… it’s what I’m doing…” Adam sighs and pushes out of his seat. “I’ve kept you here too long, anyways, Nolan. You should go home or whatever…”
“I’ll walk you home,” John offers, this disapproving look present on his face. It’s this almost matronly look, one a mother would give to a child who disobeyed or done something to disappoint her.
Adam would normally find this comical, but he’s feeling the childish shame to go alongside it. “Look, the wedding is in a few days. It’s kinda… nothing special. You can come. Bring Camille.”
“Camille can take photos,” John suggests, and then immediately seems to withdraw it. They round a corner. “It is possible that’s a bad idea. I’ll come, though. Are you going back down to… Texas?”
“Yeah, I’m only up here for a day or two. Band practice,” Adam explains, and lights up a cigarette. “It’s nice seeing you, John,” and then, he can’t explain why, but he’s ready to pour his heart out. “I’m really glad you like talking to me again, and you’re really one of the better people I know. I’m so glad we’re on good terms again, and I’d feel really kind of… kind of blessed if you wanted to show up at my wedding.”
And he turns to John with his warmest smile, and John replies with a sketch of a warm smile, something shaky and incomplete. “I’ll definitely show. Thanks.”
Adam arrives at Matt’s apartment, heads to the entrance, and turns around right before he enters. John is scarce.
**
The wedding is this jaunty mockery of a formal wedding, but Adam likes it more than any other wedding in his realm of imagination. Sure, Matt came in his dress shirt and pressed pants, expecting something long and cordial and nice, and his family attended, plastered on pleasant smiles, greeting his wife and future child.
The reverend that night seems to be John.
Adam sees him standing up on the makeshift altar, at his makeshift wedding, and his stomach twists unpleasant, hisses acid into his throat. Mischa simply grasps his hands and smiles at him, and he stares down at her, shocked and disturbed.
“Adam? You okay?” she calls, and briefly looks up to the sky, feeling a bit of a chill. It’s unusually overcast and cool for Texas in the summer. Her gaze is centered back on him again, concerned.
The singer is paler than their white wedding cake, paler than she’s ever seen. He’s no better when they’re on the altar, and she blames nerves. His family and the band and a scattered few acquaintances - not a lot of them are her acquaintances - are sitting and watching. They’re sitting and watching as Adam stammers through a wedding vow that suddenly sounds vastly inappropriate, glances nervously through hers, and takes a shaky breath before bending down towards her for the kiss.
He’s thinking about how horrible it is that he’s doing this to her. Poor Mischa, who could have had a life outside of this. Poor child, born off of a hook-up. There’s self-pity coiled up so tight in his stomach he thinks he’s going to vomit. After the kiss, everybody cheers and he looks at John, John with these disappointed and resigned green eyes, and he turns to Mischa.
The people are clearing, are heading towards the table with refreshments on it, some are heading into his house. Adam’s family sticks around and his mother has her camera phone out, and she’s snapping pictures. Adam begins sucking in panting breaths, and the majority of people attending know not to ask.
The grass and soil feel heavy and soft beneath his shoes, his new wife is worried at his side, and eventually he turns to her, hisses out, “What’s John doing?” He’s saying it like it’s John’s fault, not his, that he’s panicking at his own wedding.
“John? He’s already started on the beers,” his wife says, and points out a different John. Adam’s almost amused - most goddamn common name ever.
“Nolan, I mean. John Nolan.”
She’s heard about John Nolan. She, nervously, steps away from him, and says, “Excuse me?”
Adam looks up, to find the reverend, find John - and there seems to have been some mix-up, because it’s the reverend from the nearby Episcopal church, and Adam’s squinting at him, muttering to his wife, “Now that’s just plain weird.” He pauses and shuts his eyes, and he even begins pursing his lips together and furrows his brows, still panicked. He opens his mouth. “Where did John go?”
And his eyes stay remain shut until he hears Eddie in front of him, hears the heavy way Eddie breathes when he had previously been moving quickly, can smell the faintest scent of sweat. “Adam,” he murmurs, and Adam can even still hear his wife at his side, but she’s backing away slowly. He can almost see her staring longingly at her friends and family who are waiting for her, but she’s stuck here with her embarrassing new husband.
Finally summoning the courage to open his eyes, he attempts to smile, but it’s not nearly genuine enough. He didn’t think it would be. “Hey, Eddie,” he says, waiting to be asked the initial concerned inquiries.
“What happened?” Eddie shoots a look to Mischa, telling her it’s okay to leave now, and she’s off. He grabs Adam by the shoulders, stares at him seriously.
“It’s just really… really goddamn strange.” Adam laughs this pathetic, frantic laugh and stares past Eddie, to where he can see the neighbor’s large green lawn. “It’s really goddamn strange. I thought I invited John, and he was the… the fucking… fucking reverend…”
Eddie still hasn’t gauged the situation entirely. “John?”
“Nolan.” He’s almost tired of saying the name. “I thought he was…” he trails off, almost proud of how insane he must sound. “I swore… well, I guess he wasn’t. I did invite John, though. He said he would come.”
“Did he?” The situation has been assessed. The calm of the rest of the wedding is at least ten good yards away from the two; they’re isolated. Eddie narrows his eyes and swears under his breath. “You’ve been talking to John again? I didn’t know that.”
Adam stares at him in disbelief. It’s partially denial; a new and sudden conclusion made its unwanted appearance. “How did you not know that? We’re together all the time.”
Eddie’s expression mirrors the disbelief but there’s a gradient pattern, shading into disappointment. Adam feels the burning childish shame again but he’s so shaken he can’t grasp it all the way. “I don’t even know what to do with you. Shaun says they’re in the studio right now. He didn’t mention a thing about John and you talking.”
The suspicion that something much larger is very wrong persists. Adam, incredulous, takes a moment to receive and process his words, allows his expression to shut down entirely. He knows he met up with John on the east coast several times, talked to him via text messages and telephones, and knew that Eddie must’ve seen him lounging in their tour bus (not that they had been touring a lot recently) at least once or twice. The feeling that something slipped away from Adam long ago actively resurfaces, and he settles on shaking his head. “We’ve been talking plenty.”
And that’s when he connects it.
“Have you?” Eddie asks, curious, maybe tinged with a hint of age-old anger.
“Yeah,” and Adam’s sighing. Whenever he does something particularly insane, he’s not scared or surprised. When he comes to the conclusion that John is not the reverend, was never invited to the wedding, he’s not surprised. He must have known it all along, some idea stored inside him and distorted by delusion.
The sun emerges from behind a thick white cloud, the first time it’s visible that day, and Adam’s squinting at Eddie, has to squint at everything. Eddie’s squinting right back; concerned squinting. It’s almost as though he’s heartbroken. Everything he’d been working for, all the outside forces of the world he wishes he could protect Adam from, it was a waste. And seeing Adam like this on his wedding day, it’s enough to break his heart. Eddie searches the other man’s face through his slit eyes, can see Adam’s tightened brown eyes, his tanned skin, his combed hair. “Adam?” he ventures, gently, knowing how Adam is exposed to all of these unstoppable forces he invents for himself. “I don’t think you’ve been talking to John,” and he pauses. “So that’s where you’d go? When you’d go to coffee places in middle of tour, or leave Matt’s late at night? To be with John?”
Adam’s terrified suddenly, stammering, “Well… well, well… well…” The whites of his eyes are at an increased level of visibility. The words escape sharply, outbursts leading to non-existent statements. “Well, well…”
Eddie is not even sure what to do at this point. “Did you say something about the reverend?”
Still spluttering and not fully started, Adam’s going, “Well, well…”
“It’s okay.” Eddie sighs and makes his hands into a visor above his eyes, tries to make calm eyes at the panicked Adam. “What’s going on, man? You think you’re going to be okay?”
Adam coughs, maneuvers his head back so he’s staring into the sun, looks down at Eddie with his retinas all burned out. “Yeah, I’ll be… I mean, I could’ve sworn he was there…”
**
John Nolan lives in Kansas. It takes him a long time to come to terms with this fact. The street he lives on is a lot like his town in Long Island, just different types of trees and more compact, more varied houses. Not to mention the yards are overshadowed by tall grasses and various prairie foliages that he once thought uninteresting but soon learned to find fascinating. The street signs are new on his block, the red on the stop sign is inarguably red, the green metal pole supporting it is unrusted and fresh.
It takes him five or six days, days spent wandering myopic or spectacled, to memorize the colors of his block. The block does not reach far, John shares it with four or five families, residents of the state of Kansas. There are a few kids on his block, ones that he’s almost run over with a car when they darted out to retrieve a football when he was pulling into a parking spot in front of his humble Kansas home, ones that would run up onto his porch and try to sell him stale chocolates for numerous school fundraisers.
It’s July, and it’s his summer spent relaxing with Camille, his photographer wife, and he’s extremely bored. Camille is out grocery shopping, which is an event that takes hours for her (unless he makes a detailed and direction-specific shopping list) simply because she becomes “fascinated by the organization and color”, which is an excuse used on many other occasions. There sits a shack of a general store a few blocks east of where he resides that he’s only ventured in to desperately escape the summer heat or buy a few beers.
It’s in this general store that he sees the notorious Adam Lazzara.
He almost tries to play it smooth, pretend Adam isn’t there, staring at the cigarettes behind the checkout counter, but it’s really difficult to ‘play it smooth’ when John finds himself attempting to voyage over to the snack isle but he’s folded in half by a metal news rack, one that tabletops him and sends him crashing with it onto the ground.
Disoriented, John freaks and moans, “Oh, oh god,” and he’s laughing a little, sprawling around so he can get up, retrieve his hat, limbs going this way and that. He already can feel Adam’s eyes on him, along with the amused eyes of the cashier.
John feels the two sets of eyes on him, even when he’s got the metal news rack and himself upright and composed again, and finally, he takes a deep, preparatory breath in, and hooks his gaze on Adam’s.
Adam appears to be positively horrified.
Always a bit of an awkward goat, John lifts his arm up by the elbow and waves his forearm back and forth three times. Horror isn’t too farfetched of a reaction, he rationalizes. Adam’s expression doesn’t shift, but he does move away from the check-out line (which consisted merely of him) and doesn’t look away. “Hey,” John greets stiffly.
“Aren’t you going to tell me not to smoke?” Adam asks with his tone just as accusatory as it is confounded.
“Oh, sure,” John says, entirely confused and therefore submitting to the idea. “Don’t smoke. It’s impeding to your health.” The suggestion and follow-up come out sheepish and unsure, trilling quizzically towards the end of both sentences. He takes in Adam’s appearance, but tries not to think too much of it yet.
“It is, isn’t it?” Adam laughs, and turns. “I’d like to purchase two packs of Marlboro Lights.” He spins back to face John, smiling hysterically. “It’s been awhile since I saw you. I thought I was done with this. I thought after a month I’d stopped seeing you.”
“Stopped…? Well, yeah, it’s been a pretty long time, yeah…” John finds himself falling into everything Adam says, hasn’t had enough time to think anything. Adam seems to be thinking these ideas very strongly, too, as if John objecting to anything he said was a nonexistent idea, disagreement hadn’t even been considered. It is overwhelming for John.
Adam grabs his pack of cigarettes and starts smoking one right there, after struggling with the antagonizingly noisy plastic wrapping around the carton. John doesn’t even think Adam’s aware that he’s not allowed to smoke indoors there, not that it’s an act of rebellion.
“You’re usually a bit more articulate than that. And I’m pretty clear headed right now,” Adam seems to, after saying this, lose that overwhelming quality. He’s suddenly not extremely sure.
John’s baffled. “What?”
Adam smokes his cigarette for a moment, thoughtfully. “My doctor said you were a manifestation… like, a… a visual manifestation of… so I know you’re not real. But I don’t really care…” He pulls the cigarette out.
“What?” John repeats, still baffled.
The cashier stopped paying attention awhile before, which is good because Adam isn’t sure if he’s talking to himself or to someone else, suddenly. He takes another drag of his cigarette. “You know… I figured it out. I connected the dots. They tried to medicate me, but that shit takes the… it sedates most of everything. And I wasn’t harming anybody, so I didn’t have to.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s not very complicated. Stop acting like that. It’s annoying, Nolan.”
“Did something happen?” John almost looks concerned, but he’s too busy being fed words that are currently gibberish to him, and the look doesn’t quite come across his features with sound execution.
The cashier is back in the ring. It’s a middle-aged minority with an unsettling burst of facial hair on the tip of his barely molded chin, but everything else is friendly enough, approachable enough for a shack of a general store. He looks to John and says, “I saw your wife taking pictures outside my store.” He smiles at John, because they now have something to talk about.
Adam rounds on the cashier, because there was one thing he remembered about last month and all the previous visits from his John Nolan, and that was one thing: nobody else noticed him.
It all connects then. He walks over to John, cigarette still in his mouth, kind of trembling all over, and he’s laughing and laughing. He moves like he’s moving through a dream. “Oh shit,” he laughs.