As a boy he was always much smaller than the other kids. At ten kids picked on him at school - juvenile bullying, like spitting in his hair, shoving him in a locker, or kicking him around at the bus stop. He wasn't cool, he wasn't tough, which, in the L.A. public school system makes you, essentially, helpless.
He had no friends, so he focused on school. His interest in history sparked a friendship with his sixth grade history teacher. He spent much of that year after school, and soon at the man's house for an extra history lesson. Everything seemed to escalate gradually. It started out with small comments, and then there was touching, and when it was too late to run away - full-scale rape. When he didn't show up on Saturday afternoons, he was punished with detentions that consisted of cruel sexual favors. Angel was raped weekly for an entire year. He told no one.
In seventh grade he begged his parents to switch schools, to move, to go elsewhere because he didn't want to return to his lessons - and even more so, didn't want to face the punishment he would receive for not going. He told his mother that he couldn't go back to school because he was suffering abuses from the kids at school. She hated to see him crying after school every day, and getting into so much trouble - so she sent him to a private school that they could barely afford. His parents divorced when he was fourteen - his dad walked out the door, leaving them both flat broke. He had to drop out of school for a year and he never saw his father again.
Angel became a trouble kid in his high school years. He did drugs, got kicked out of school - and when money was tight for his mother and himself, he sold drugs and robbed stores to make up the difference. He ended up in a juvenile facility for six months for some small crime - and learned quickly why it was horrible to be a prisoner.
Inmates took pleasure in participating in the beatings of newcomers, and being the small kid he was - he seemed prone to being pushed around. He got used to the fights, and the beatings after a while. The guards didn't do shit, and no one was going to do shit about anything, and he had finally learned to accept that. A week before his release he was the center of a gang bang in the locker room. Goodbye, gay, effeminate, weak, Angel - see you in the real world.
He never went back to school, and shortly after his stay in juvie he met Ted, and fell in fast love with him. Regardless of this new ground, his life was still spiraling out of control - when everything became too much - he cleaned out the medicine cabinet. Ted found him in his bedroom barely alive, and rushed him to the hospital. At the age of seventeen he was sent to L.A. Psychiatric facilities where he spent almost eight months before he met me, and all of my frayed, broken beauty.
He bought the album and kept in contact with me on and off for a few months, but after I returned home from promotion I grew more and more distant, and his calls came less and less. Then on some miraculous day when I was separating pills on the kitchen table and sliding razors over wedding invitations he gave me a call.
He said "Let's meet up, we have to talk." I said fine, stuck the razor in the table and scooped all of the pills into a childproof container. I kissed Alex and Theo goodbye, and left, slipping two numbing pills into my mouth. Just a little Valium, that's it. That's what I always said.
I met him at a restaurant, and we sat down to have soda. Sometimes I forgot that he was underage - barely even eighteen. I offered him a cigarette, he accepted and took it between the fingers of his small hands.
"Mike died." He said without warning. "The Stripe called me and told me today."
I lit up a cigarette and contemplated this thought for a second. The news neither shocked nor affected me. Very few things penetrated the relatively solid brick wall I had built. "How did he die?" I asked carefully.
"Suicide." Angel took a long drag off of his cigarette. "He took too many sleeping pills. They think he had been collecting them for a while from his night medication. What dumb fuck mental asylum gives their patients potentially deadly drugs? Oh wait, I forgot, all of them." Regardless of his bitter words, his voice was weak - he sounded sad... troubled. "It didn't take much... not in his state, at least. He would've died from the weight loss if they hadn't insisted on putting him on the tubes."
I sucked on my cigarette and nodded. I just let the news drift over me. I didn't let it hurt - I was too fucked up to let it hurt. "Have they had the funeral yet?"
"No."
"Are you going?"
"I don't know. Do you want to go?" He looked up at me.
"No."
He looked surprised. I wanted to laugh. Why would he think someone like me would want to go to a funeral? Why? To stare at another corpse? To face another death? To have it all blow up in my face?
A funeral makes it real, and as long as the last thing I remember about him was him saying goodbye to me the day I left - in my mind, it never had to be real. I would have never seen him again, anyway. Why should go through the trouble of creating an ending to this story? Why should I weep over the casket of a boy who threw up in pie plates and put them under his bed - of the boy I roomed with at a fucking mental health facility?
This didn't need to be real. Not like Zac's placid face, not like Ani's bloody body in a bathtub. His absence meant nothing to me - why should I hang death over my head like a cloud - make it real - make it matter, and for what reason? To have this monster swallow me with its sharp teeth and red eyes? Death made an absence seem greater than an absence would normally be seen. Death was final. Death was the end. My ending was the sallow, sickly looking boy who was waving goodbye. That was good enough for me.
"...Tay?"
Angel interrupted my dark haze. I glanced up and noticed that the cigarette ash had grown nearly an inch long. I must have been blanked out for a while - how fucking weird of me. I ashed and then took another drag.
"Are you alright?" He asked, "I mean... with this?"
I nodded and sucked deeply on the end of my cigarette, suddenly feeling the red-hot cherry sear the flesh of my fingers. Momentarily I felt pain, but the pain seemed to drift away like the smoke I breathed into the sky. "I'm fine."
"Did that just hurt?"
"No." He looked momentarily puzzled, and with the cigarette hanging loosely from my lips, I showed him the welts on my hands and fingers. "Nothing hurts." I said, pulling the nearly finished cigarette from my lips.
I dumped pills into my hand and dropped them on the table between us. "One pill for all of the demons."
He took one in his hand. "Sixth grade history."
I took one, "Hanson."
He took one, "My father leaving us."
"Isaac leaving us."
"Unaccomplished suicide."
"Drug overdose."
"Ending up in an institution."
"I'll second that."
"L.A. Correctional Facilities."
"A boy who throws up into pie plates."
"Getting arrested."
"My bleeding goddess."
"Fucked by thirty people in a locker room."
"Vomit."
"Semen."
"Want to come to my wedding?"
"Yes."
I stared at the array of pills spread out between us. "Fuck-ups. That's what we are."
Angel scooped his into his hand and popped three into his mouth. "Here's to being a fuck-up!"
I raised my coke and our glasses clinked as we each downed some of our Valium and shoved the rest into our pockets. From my jacket pocket my hand emerged holding one of the manila wedding invitations that we had made up, and were getting ready to send. "Please come."
He accepted the invitation with both of his small delicate hands. "Thank you." We each took long drinks of our cokes, letting the slow numbing effects of the Valium into our systems. My body was beginning to feel weak, I had taken quite a bit that day.
"How's the family?" He asked after a long gap in conversation.
"They're good." I said softly. "I'm the one that's a wreck." I laughed lightly and smiled through teary eyes that momentarily blind sighted me - but were quickly blinked away.
"How's the baby?"
"Beautiful." I said, "Theo's the best thing in my life."
He looked thoughtful, "Babies are so nice. Sometimes I wish I wasn't gay so I could have one. It must be such an amazing experience - to bring life into this world, and nurture it."
"You could always adopt." I suggested.
"It's not the same." He sighed. "He wouldn't be my own. I can't raise a child with two gay parents... I just don't feel right about that."
"Maybe your views will change." I said, suddenly wondering what it would have been like to be raised by two men, or two women, for that matter. I sighed softly, and thought of what it would have been like to be raised by a drug addict. Then I thought of Theo. "It can't be a worse situation than the one I'm in."
"You love your baby."
I shook my head, "But look at me. I'm a fucking mess. I always was, too. I was never meant to have children - that child was not supposed to call me 'Daddy.' Zac would have been his father. Zac would have been so much better than me - he at least had his life together. And here I am - fathering my brother's child while the whole world thinks he's mine. But he's not. It was never supposed to end up this way. I'm not his father."
"You are his father, though." Angel replied, "Maybe it wasn't your Y chromosome but you are his father. You're whom he will always know as 'Daddy.' Make sure he knows your brother - but you've got to understand that he's gone, and you're always going to be Daddy to that little boy, no matter who was there at the moment of conception." He sighed and mumbled softly. "He's lucky he has a loving father, like you."
"I'm afraid." I said softly.
"Of what?"
I thought about it, and I didn't really know. I was afraid of the instability that inevitably seemed to follow me through life, and everything that surrounds instability. I was afraid of the pills I had been separating on the table, and the powder that I wanted so badly. I was afraid of the sickness, and the nightmares, and the tears. I was afraid that one day I couldn't hide it all, and when he got older, and he understood and saw my true character - he would wish for his other father. His real father. And the sick part about that, is that I would, too.
"I think I'm gonna get out of here." I said.
"Where are you going?"
"Home."
Angel looked lonely right then. I sighed and dropped a ten-dollar bill on the table. "Come on."
"With you?"
"Yes."
He followed me in his car back to my place, and as we climbed the stairs to my apartment I couldn't help but think about how Angel was our first visitor in over a year. I struggled with my keys at the door, and allowed him into my apartment. "Welcome home." I said, softly.
Alexis appeared in the hallway, she was in her underwear and a baby tee. She saw Angel and sighed softly to herself. "Taylor, warn me the next time we're having company, okay?" She walked across the kitchen, and I was entranced by the way her body moved. Without a thought I gravitated toward her.
I caught myself in what I was doing and quickly turned to Angel. "Uh, yeah, this is Angel - I believe you've met before. I know him from the hospital."
"Hello, Angel. I'm Alex, and yes I believe we've met before, but I'll introduce myself again. I normally wear more clothes."
He laughed shyly and took her hand. They smiled at each other and I circled my hands around her waist from behind and kissed her softly on the cheek. "I love you, honey." I said, and she smiled as a silent response. "Is Theo sleeping?"
"Yes."
I hung heavily onto her, and she soon noticed I was starting to lean against her, a little too much. "Taylor?" She swung around.
I grunted and stood up straight, then slumped backward to lean on the counter. She looked between the two of us, our eyelids heavy. I was really beginning to feel the lagging effects of all the Valium I had taken. She stared at me long and hard. "You are not going to handle my son right now. You understand that?"
"He's my son, too." I said, softly.
"No he's not!" She shouted. "And don't you ever come in here fucked up and say that. When you are fucked up, you lose the privilege of calling yourself his father."
I didn't respond to her, instead I looked at Angel, who stood awkwardly watching. "Would you like anything to drink?"
"No."
I looked back at Alex, and her eyes were searching my face. When I stared back at her, she averted them and left the room. "I'm going to get myself a beer." I announced, and grabbed myself one from the back of the fridge. "Are you sure you don't want anything?" Angel still shook his head.
I sat down on the couch and flipped on the television, sipping my beer. I could tell Angel felt very awkward, but I couldn't think of anything to do to make him feel more comfortable. I was heavy and tired, and I was beginning to think that bringing Angel home with me was a stupid and pointless idea. He fidgeted beside me.
"Ang, don't worry about it, okay? Don't feel out of place, my home is your home... We fight all of the time..." I said, trying to make it sound like a normal thing. I realized after I had said it that 'We fight all of the time' isn't exactly what you tell someone you just invited to your wedding. We didn't fight all of the time. In fact, we didn't fight at all. We walked around issues, and ignored them, pushing them under the carpet for later. Sometimes she yelled, and I just accepted what she was saying - because most of the time it was true. I had reached a higher level of self-defeat than she.
He obviously wasn't any more comfortable... and we sat awkwardly for a few minutes and he finally spoke. "I'm sorry about what happened in the showers." He said.
I raised my eyebrows at him, "What happened in the showers?"
He looked at me momentarily, but didn't meet my eyes. "I've been meaning to say that for a while, I know it's my fault."
"There's nothing to be sorry for. It was fine." I said, suddenly remembering the cold wall against my body. "I asked for it."
"For my sake." He said. "You only did it for my sake."
"I still gave permission. It's no big deal, okay?" I had tried not to think about that day, I'd pushed it to the back of my mind with whatever strength I had. Why should I think about it? What was done was done - and I couldn't take back the things I said or what took place. Why over-analyze? I was pretty pleased with how thoroughly I had managed to ignore it, up until that point. Push it under the carpet and we won't ever have to see it again. My carpet was getting kind of lumpy. "It was nothing."
This time he looked at me, and I stared right back into his face. "The Stripe asked what happened, Taylor. He said you were crying when he came to you. I'm not stupid."
"Well, neither am I. And what do you think it would have mattered anyway? I can't feel, anymore. Look at my fucking eyes." I stared at him. "I wasn't going to sit there... and watch some cocky bastard rape you."
"Yeah, so I watched some cocky bastard rape you." He said simply. I felt a fire well up in my chest. I didn't know where it came from, but I was suddenly angry. Regardless of the numbing effects of the Valium, I felt the heat of rage all over my body. I wanted to punch him but my body was so heavy that I didn't even feel that it was worth the effort.
"That wasn't rape." I said. "I leaned against the wall, and I said: 'Fuck me, fuck me!' That's not fucking rape."
"Shut the fuck up, Taylor Hanson." Angel said, pointing at me. I was taken aback, this was the most aggressive I had ever seen Angel in my entire life. "I saw your face that day. It doesn't matter what you said, you did not want what you got - and it's my fault that you did what you did. I'm taking the blame. Can't you just fucking accept that?"
"What the fuck does it matter? Why do you care so much?"
"Because I've been there, and I know how it fucking feels."
"Really? What the fuck do you know?"
"I know that any man that wanted that would have at least had a fucking hard-on." Angel retorted. Rage festered in the pit of my stomach, and it hurt so badly that it started to ache. I wanted to throw it all up - to cleanse myself of anger and hurt. I had no words to say to him. His face relaxed once he realized that his point had been made - and that I had no response for him. I couldn't challenge what he saw.
I swallowed hard and Alex entered the room with Theo in her arms. I tried to break the stare down between us, but his eyes were searching. He searched me over again and again for all of the answers he already knew. Eventually I closed my eyes and turned my head to acknowledge Alex.
"What are you talking about in here?" She asked. She looked concerned, with Theo balanced on her hip. I shook my head and stood up.
"Nothing." I looked at Angel, sitting on the couch. "I'm pretty tired... I think it's time for you to go."
He was staring at Theo, and he looked down at the floor. "Okay." He said, softly, and stood. "He's really beautiful, by the way." Angel looked torn, but he smiled over it. "You guys have good blood."
He looked up at me momentarily. I was ice. He shifted awkwardly toward the door. "Well. I'll give you a call sometime, Taylor. See you soon, hopefully." He exited silently, and shut the door behind him.
"Goodbye." Alexis called after him, weakly, after the door had been shut. She looked at me, questioningly. "What happened?"
"Nothing." I said, and followed my feet to the bathroom, where, down on my knees, I made it okay for myself. I felt relief. Even when Alex stood crying in the open doorway, I somehow felt comfort. My eyes were pale blue when I saw myself in the mirror. Everything was washed away, flushed down the toilet. Everything, down to the color of my eyes.
I am not the man you want, I thought as I licked the envelopes for my wedding invitations. I wanted to close my pale eyes forever. The things that were preventing me from giving up were becoming less and less visible.
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What I've kept with me,
and what I've thrown away.
And where the hell I've ended up
On this glary, random day
Were the things I really cared about,
just left along the away.
For being too pent up and proud
Woke up way too late,
feeling hungover and old.
And the sun was shining bright
and I walked barefoot down the road.
Started thinking 'bout my old man,
It seems that all I want to get into a car and go,
anywhere.
Here I stand,
Sad and free.
I can't cry,
and I can't see
What I've done.
Oh God what have I done?
Don't you know I'm numb, man
No I can't feel a thing at all
Cos it's all smiles and business these days
And I'm indifferent to the loss
I think that there's a soul somewhere
that's leading me around.
I wonder if she knows which way is down
Here I stand,
Sad and free.
I can't cry,
and I can't see
What I've done.
Oh God what have I done?
I poured my heart out.
I poured my heart out.
It evaporated.
Sea.
Blind man on a canyon's edge
Of a panoramic scene.
Maybe I'm kite that's flying high and random
Dangling on a string
Or slumped over in a vacant room,
Head on a strangers knee.
I'm sure back home.
They think I've lost my mind.
Here I stand,
Sad and free.
I can't cry,
and I can't see
What I've done.
Oh God what have I done?
- Ben Folds Five ; "Evaporated"