77: spy
"Every glass in the house, guys? Really?"
We stir on a couch in the sitting room, clambering out from beneath each other; I'm wearing his tuxedo tie around my neck, still perfectly tied, and Bertie's got a chenille throw around his head like some kind of turban. We never do figure that one out. Xaime's standing over us in the wreckage, hands on hips, feet wedged between couch cushions that must've been integral to a fort or something but now look like old Scottish ruins.
"This is why we can't have a dog, Jimmy."
"Oh, El Niño, tell us about how we can't have nice things!" Bertie snorts, rolling on the couch in a private paroxysm. I am horrified. "You grew up poor just like us, don't pull the bourgeois card."
Xaime's arms go every which way, and land back on his hips; Bertie and I throw back our heads and laugh, and pull him onto the couch between us, tickling him and kissing his cheeks, until his imperfect frustration gives way to the joy underneath.
Life gives way to a cascading satisfaction, for weeks. Rocky and Emily, who've faded away recently, start showing up with cheap wine and board games every other night. Xaime calls off the rest of the tour for a month; Bertie promises to stay for only two this time, just until he's finished his latest masterpiece. He's doing film scores now, and says he absolutely must be finished by the New Year. I make him promise to stay at least that long, and though he tries to tempt us into doing the holidays in New York, I can't imagine being happier anywhere else than I am at home.
I've woken from a sound nap to hoots and jackal laughter downstairs; Rocky and Bertie have a ratty cardboard box between them on the coffee table. They don't hear me, poring over my strange memories.
"Oh, oh! Here's a good one," snorts Bertie. "You, In My Eyes, by somebody named Robbie..."
I step backwards on the stair, afraid to touch their moment like a glycerin bubble. I don't want them to see my history, especially not that. I don't want them to see me see them.
"I can barely read this. The kid -- he's got to be fifteen -- he's got handwriting like a serial killer..." Rocky clears his throat, and Bertie as usual rushes past the warning. "You, In My Eyes, Are A Waterfall..." There's the sound of a struggle, and I hear the page rip in half. Bertie shrieks.
"Rocky, what the fuck."
"This is... I wrote this, for a friend. Something like this. See these symbols here, along the bottom? That was my signature. I was a stoner and I thought... I don't know. This is very much."
I rush them, intent now on stopping them in their tracks.
"Where did you get that? Where did you find those?"
"It's just a box of old stuff," Bertie says, and I lunge.
"My old stuff. You're hardly pristine. Have some respect."
"Jimmy, it's just nothing. It's just, like, having fun."
I point at Rocky, whose hands are shaking with the pieces of his poem in them. "Is he having fun? Look at my face, Bertie. Is this face having fun?"
"This would seem to be a situation that doesn't require me," he says unsteadily, and I can tell he's wounded.
"It really didn't require either of you. That box is all I have, from before. That's my life."
"Well, you certainly haven't taken care of it." he says, pointing at the withered pages, the scored and broken edges.
"But it is mine."
"Gosh. Honestly, Jimmy, I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd be..."
Rocky nods. "It wasn't like that."
"You're being like Harriet the Spy right now, Jim. You're scaring us."
"I've never asked you anything about Xaime, Bertie. Thing one. 'This is now, that's us.' You said that. You said we could be whatever we want."
"Then why's this box so important? I'm an open book. Ask me anything."
"I don't care! That's the point!"
Rocky clears his throat again, and I turn on him like a wolf. "What."
"You seem really, um, ashamed. Of this stuff. Jim."
"I'm not ashamed, it's just hard to... I didn't like that boy very much."
"Somebody did," Bertie huffs.
"Yeah and he's dead."
Oh, I'll play that motherfucking card. You bet.
"Oookay, Jim. I apologize. Look, I'm putting everything back. We'll box it up and pretend it never happened, okay? We can put it at the very top of the very tallest closet in the house and never mention it again. I'm sorry."
"No, it's not that. It's not like you can just... No, because it's like that cat."
Bertie's eyes cross as he cocks his head at me.
"That cat! It's alive, it's dead, there's a gun and a toxic thing and a whole... The cat!"
I sound: Crazy.
"It's you, in the box," Rocky says, finally understanding. He nods firmly, and begins to pack everything back up as quick as he can. Bertie stares, amazed, as Rocky smoothes out the crumpled top and pats it tenderly, like a sleeping pet, and rises to put his arms around me, right there in the middle of the great room, and rock me back and forth until I can look at them again.